Facebook Inc on Thursday announced a corporate rebrand to Meta in a move seen as an effort to move beyond its scandal-plagued social network to its virtual reality vision for the future.
The corporate name change comes as the company attempts to fend off one of its worst crises and pivot to the ambitious “metaverse” project that, the company said, would blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds.
The rebrand, however, triggered a meme fest on Twitter. Twitter itself joined in on the fun as it ribbed its rival social network. The San Francisco-based company shared a post on its verified handle, simply stating: “BIG NEWS lol jk still Twitter”.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1453847172794003473
The tweet begins with a hint of a big news, but ends up poking fun at Facebook over the name change, adding a “jk” (just kidding) for good measure.
Several others also tweeted memes and jokes to poke fun at Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the move. “What form of government will the #metaverse have? Democracy or an autocracy?” asked one user, while another tweeted “Can’t have problems with Facebook if the company isn’t called Facebook.”
Facebook, however, isn’t the first major tech giant to undergo a major corporate rebrand. In 2015, Google Inc surprised the world and announced it was undertaking a massive reorganisation, with a new holding company. Alphabet Inc has since become the name of the conglomerate that owns Google, Android, and YouTube.
“I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during its annual Connect developers’ conference.
“Our mission remains the same, still about bringing people together, our apps and their brands, they’re not changing.”
The Meta products — Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram — will retain their individual identities after the rebranding exercise that critics have called an effort to distract the news cycle from the platform’s dysfunction.
