Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday (Oct. 28) that Facebook is changing its name. What was formerly known as Facebook Inc., the parent company behind the namesake app, as well as Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and the virtual reality company Oculus is now called Meta Platforms Inc.
The move is a nod to the metaverse, an immersive next-generation version of the internet that relies heavily on virtual reality technology. Instead of browsing or sending messages online, you could feel like you’re physically there, interacting with virtual versions of real people, places, and stores.
“From now on, we’re going to be the metaverse first, not Facebook first,” Zuckerberg said at the company’s annual Connect conference Thursday. “Our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything we’re doing today, let alone the future.”
Though its vision is expanding to virtual spaces where people interact via digital avatars, the company said it is not changing its corporate structure. It will trade under the ticker symbol MVRS.
Facebook and its apps Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp will be housed in a separate division from Facebook Reality Labs, which makes the company’s augmented and virtual reality products, the company said earlier this week.
The rebranding of one of the world’s most powerful and best-known companies comes as Facebook is embroiled in a public relations crisis over a cache of documents leaked by former product manager Frances Haugen and provided to Congress.
A consortium of 17 U.S. news organizations, including USA TODAY, obtained the redacted versions of those documents that provide a rare glimpse inside the company and its decisions that seem to prioritize profits over people’s well-being.
Zuckerberg said this week that news coverage of those documents has painted a “false picture” of the company.
Forrester vice president and Research Director Mike Proulx said the name change won’t change problems inside the company.
“If Meta doesn’t address its issues beyond a defensive and superficial altitude, those same issues will occupy the metaverse,” he said.
