Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, announced Thursday that the parent company will now be called Meta, to better represent all of its activities, from social networks to virtual reality, but the names of different services, such as Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, 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 ”.
“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.) .
” Change the subject “
This name change is interpreted as a distraction maneuver by critics of the Californian group, entangled in scandals and controversies, from disinformation to data confidentiality, including respect for competition law.
The firm “thinks that a new brand can help it change the subject”, already reacted last week an NGO of anti-Facebook activists, ironically baptized “the real supervisory board of Facebook” (“The Real Facebook Oversight Board ”), when rumors of a name change were circulating.
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.
However, Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about the metaverse for a few months. He has already announced investments of several billion dollars over the coming years and the recruitment of 10,000 people in Europe for this project.
He gave more details on Thursday, painting a future worthy of sci-fi while providing marketing insight for brands.