Facebook Has Officially Changed The Name Of Its Parent Company To ‘Meta,’ And The Dunks Are Plentiful

After previously teasing that the company was headed for a rebranding following a parade of bad headlines stemming from leaks and whistleblowers, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has officially announced that the company is now called “Meta.” For the record, Meta will be the new name for the parent company that oversees Facebook, the social media platform, which will continue to still be called, well, Facebook. Via CNN:

Facebook is changing its company name to reflect its future ambitions and confronts wide-ranging scrutiny of the real-world harms from its various platforms after a whistleblower leaked hundreds of internal documents.

The company will change its name to Meta, effectively demoting Facebook’s namesake service to being just one of the company’s subsidiaries, alongside Instagram and WhatsApp, rather than the overarching brand.

The name change was announced on Thursday during a Facebook Connect starring Zuckerberg where he laid out the company’s plans for the future, which involve expanding beyond the social media sphere.

“Today we’re seen as a social media company,” Zuckerberg said. “But in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people. And the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started.”

Naturally, the reactions started pouring in fast and furious on social media where the Facebook name change (that’s not really a name change) was dunked on along with Zuckerberg’s weird robotic video. You can see some of the reactions below:

While the future of social media and how it adapts to an internet where misinformation has became a rampant societal ill is important, perhaps the greatest existential question from Zuckerberg’s announcement is his choice of bookends because, seriously, is that what it looks like? My god…

(Via CNN)