NGOs and observers critical of Facebook on Wednesday accused the American giant of seeking to distract the public from the many problems and scandals linked to its social networks by proposing to change its name.
Facebook, which includes, among others, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, plans to create a parent company with a new name, according to information from the specialized site The Verge, published Wednesday.
“If you give a new name to a product that doesn’t work anymore, people will quickly understand that the new brand has the same issues,” tweeted Benedict Evans, an independent analyst specializing in Silicon Valley.
“A better approach would be to solve the problem, and then create a new brand that reflects the new product,” he continued.
Facebook, requested by AFP, declined to comment on the rumor.
According to The Verge, the new name should serve to reflect the efforts led by the group to build the “metaverse”, considered as a possible future of the Internet, where technologies will make it possible to navigate in a universe parallel to the real world.
The Californian firm announced Monday that it plans to hire 10,000 people within five years in Europe to work on this “metaverse”, which will notably involve its augmented and virtual reality divisions, such as its brand of immersive headsets Oculus .
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg could reveal the new name on October 28 at an annual conference on these topics.
“Facebook thinks changing its name can help it change the subject,” an anti-Facebook association, which ironically calls itself the “Real Facebook Oversight Board”, said in a statement.
“It’s a sign that they are willing to do anything to distract from their failure to clean up their hate-filled platforms.” Whatever they call themselves, the problem remains, […] they need real and independent regulation, right away, ”continues the association.
The company, which has been chaining scandals for years, has been going through a particularly difficult period since France Haugen, a former whistleblower employee, leaked internal press documents and accused the platform of putting “profits before the security ”of its users.
The social network would not be the first pillar of the Internet to change its name.
In 2015, Google thus reorganized its activities by creating a parent company called Alphabet, which manages the search engine, the YouTube platform, the Waymo autonomous car subsidiary, etc.
But as several observers pointed out, Google did not become Alphabet in the media or public opinion.