SAN FRANCISCO | The Facebook and Instagram platforms, WhatsApp and Messenger messaging and Oculus virtual reality headsets now belong to Meta, the new name of the Californian group that dreams of being the orchestra master of a parallel world, far from the daily scandals linked to social networks .
Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, announced Thursday that the parent company will now be called Meta, to better represent all of its activities. The names of the different services will remain unchanged.
The founder of the tech giant, accused of putting profits before humans by a whistleblower and many elected officials, chose “meta” – “beyond” in ancient Greek – to show that there is ” always more to build ”and a new blue logo in the shape of a horizontal“ 8 ”, resembling the infinity symbol in mathematics.
“We have learned a lot by facing many problems,” he said, saying that now is the time to learn the lessons to “build the next chapter”.
This announcement was made after an hour and a half of presentation of the “metaverse”, “métavers” in French for meta-universe.
According to him, the metaverse represents the future of the Internet, after computers and mobile phones, to which the public will have access to interact, work or be entertained via technologies (augmented reality glasses, virtual reality headsets, etc. ).
This name change is interpreted as a distraction maneuver by detractors of the Californian group, entangled in scandals and controversies, from disinformation to data confidentiality and respect for competition law.
Like the tobacco makers
“Changing the name does not change the reality: Facebook destroys our democracy and it is the chief peddler of disinformation and hatred”, reacted an NGO of anti-Facebook activists, ironically baptized “the real supervisory board of Facebook (“The Real Facebook Oversight Board”) ”.
Twitter abounded in sarcasm and critical reactions in the wake of the announcement. “Philip Morris changed his name to Altria, but they still make cigarettes that cause cancer,” noted for example Keith Edwards, a reality TV producer, using a popular comparison between social networks and tobacco companies .
The anger of the authorities and civil society has grown in recent weeks over the revelations of a whistleblower, Frances Haugen, which shows that Facebook has chosen to ignore some of the dangers – toxic content on Instagram for adolescents, disinformation that harms democracy, etc. – for the sake of preserving its profits.
The company, already the target of numerous investigations and lawsuits, is also facing a new investigation by the US government, based on internal documents that the former engineer submitted to the country’s stock exchange authority, the SEC.
On Tuesday, Facebook asked all its employees to keep all documents for several years to be able to respond to possible legal requests.
“Not prisoners”
In his presentation, Mark Zuckerberg spoke very little about the concerns of his company, and only in an abstract or positive way.
“The last few years have given me many lessons in humility,” he said.
“I have come to the conclusion that the lack of choice and high prices stifle innovation, prevent people from building new things and delay the whole digital economy,” he continued, referring to his rivalry. with its neighbor Apple and its ecosystem built around the iPhone.
The billionaire has especially expanded on his vision of the metaverse, which he has been talking about for several months.
He has already announced investments of several billion over the coming years and the recruitment of 10,000 people in Europe for this project.
“The screens cannot convey this deep feeling of the presence of the other. This is the purpose of the metaverse, ”he said in the introduction.
He gave more details on Thursday, painting a future worthy of science fiction, where individuals will be able to interact, work and play in an ultra immersive universe that will mix real people and objects with virtual avatars and images.
He also insisted on the need to build programs allowing interoperability – such as the possibility of creating a garment in one space and then using it in another – and assured that users would not be “prisoners of a world or platform ”.