Facebook will change its name later this month to reflect its intention to build the metaverse.
Renaming the social media company would bring the Facebook app under the same roof as WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as Oculus and other services that Facebook owns, according to a report by The Verge.
The alleged move coincides with the U.S. government’s increasing control over its reported politically motivated business practices and criticism of its failure to combat hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen recently claimed that the company was putting its own profits above the public good. Haugen has leaked hundreds of corporate documents The Wall Street Journal and testified to them before Congress.
Another whistleblower, Sophie Zhang, said she found “blatant attempts by foreign national governments to massively abuse our platform to mislead their own citizens.”
According to the report, Facebook’s company name is a closely guarded secret within the company. Even high-level executives aren’t privy to the information, but it’s possible the name may reflect the recently announced Horizon product – a virtual reality product that is still under development that allows meetings with Oculus Quest with Cartoon Avatars.
In September, the company, in partnership with Ray-Ban, announced some smart glasses that allow people to take photos and videos of what they’re looking at and upload them to Facebook’s suite of apps. In particular, the name of Facebook was nowhere to be seen on the glasses for this product.
Facebook is also working on Project Aria, a more powerful smart glasses project that would use augmented reality for tasks like navigating maps or finding lost items.
“Imagine calling a friend and chatting across the table with their lifelike avatar. Imagine a digital assistant smart enough to detect road hazards, provide statistics during a business meeting, or even hear better in a noisy environment, ”said Facebook. “This is a world in which the device itself disappears completely in the ups and downs of everyday life.”
Facebook CEO March Zuckerberg is expected to discuss the name change plans at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28, but the announcement could come sooner.
In response to the allegations, Facebook said it did not comment on “rumors or speculation”.
The idea of the metaverse is one that Facebook has been pushing for some time, hypothesizing a permanent, synchronous online space that spans both the digital and physical worlds, offers “unprecedented interoperability,” and contains a fully functioning economy.
In July of this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook “would effectively transition from a social media company to a metaverse company”.
However, the concept is not yet fully developed. Facebook recently announced it would hire 10,000 people in Europe to help make that vision a reality, and its roots cannot remove it from the dystopian criticism the social media company has garnered from buying or ousting rival companies since it was founded in 2004 Has.
The origins of the metaverse are Neal Stephenson’s 1992 book Snow crashwho describes it as “a poor, desperate nation literally ruled by corporate franchises,” writes Vice’s Brian Merchant.
“In the world of Snow crash, the metaverse isn’t considered particularly cool – it is necessary because the real world has become so unbearable. “
It’s not uncommon for Silicon Valley companies to rename themselves to expand their services. In 2015, Google reorganized itself under Alphabet Inc. to present itself as a global conglomerate with companies such as self-driving cars and healthcare technology under its roof.