On October 30th, 2021, Facebook announced a major rebranding to the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp Alphabet. The rebrand comes just 6 years after a slightly failed rebranding of the parent company into Alphabet. Although rebranding, media still referred to Instagram, Whatsapp, and other platforms as Facebook’s. CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the new company name ‘Meta.’ The word meta also means ‘beyond’ in Greek. 

The announcement was followed with news of a long-term project Zuckerbeg nicknamed the ‘metaverse.’ Zuckerberg intends this project to connect many aspects of the real world into a virtual platform. Zuckerberg wants this platform to revolutionize people’s lives, allowing them to access work, play, concerts, or even socialize with family or friends from their house. This new technology could revolutionize the way we connect with our peers.

In the past few months, Facebook has been under fire after a whistleblower and former Facebook employee, Frances Haugman, reported that Meta’s platforms such as Facebook and Instagram allegedly favor profits over the mental health of the teens that use the platforms. Mark Zuckerberg refused the allegations but the damage was still done. “The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical,” Zuckerberg noted. This rebranding could be an attempt to bring some brighter light to Instagram and Facebook’s currently tarnished reputations. 

“Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we’re building towards,” Zuckerberg said. The rebranding of Facebook’s parent company ultimately will allow them to reach into the ‘metaverse’ project. If this metaverse is all that Mark Zuckerberg described it as, this platform will surely revolutionize the way we currently communicate, work, and socialize.