Mark Zuckerberg wants to create a “Metaverse Company”

Trying to revamp Facebook from the leaked information of the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, a former product manager on the civic integrity team at Facebook. The documents revealed how Facebook concentrated more on profits than reducing hate speech, fake news, and how its products contributed to the Capitol riots in Washington back in January. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook has announced the changing of its corporate name from Facebook Inc to Meta. In hopes of distancing itself from a social media platform that’s in crisis mode.
 
His goal is to create a “Metaverse Company.” Which is a blend of digital technologies including video-conferencing, games like Minecraft or Roblox, cryptocurrencies, email, virtual reality, social media and live-streaming. The Washington Post stated, “it’s akin to a 3D world wide web, where businesses, information and communication tools are immersive and interoperable.”

“From now on, we’re going to be the metaverse first. Not Facebook first,” Zuckerberg said at Connect, the company’s annual event focused on virtual and augmented reality. “Facebook is one of the most-used products in the world. But increasingly, it doesn’t encompass everything that we do. Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything we are doing.”

Some officials say that the new name and project are part of a crisis response strategy aimed at distracting lawmakers, investors and the public. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Commerce consumer protection panel that is leading an investigation into Facebook and heard from Haugen at a hearing this month, said the name change is part of Facebook’s broader battle against regulation.

Blumenthal stated at a briefing on Capitol Hill that Facebook is changing its name “because their reaction here is all about cosmetics, all about superficial changes designed to confuse and distract — just as they are continuing their lobbying against” children’s online safety protections. “And it will continue: changing names, emblems, insignias, logos — it's all about the cosmetics for them because they want to continue that business model that makes them money."

Zuckerberg's response to the skepticism is that “the future won't be built on its own — it will be built by those who are willing to stand up and say, ‘This is the future we want, and I'm going to keep pushing and giving everything I've got to make this happen...’ There are important issues to work on in the present — there always will be — so for many people, I’m just not sure there will ever be a good time to focus on the future.’” He stressed that safety, privacy, and ethics would be part of the development of the metaverse.

Nick Clegg, the company's vice president of global affairs and communications said that the years it will take for the virtual-reality and augmented-reality technology to take shape will offer plenty of time for regulators and policymakers to address implications for privacy and other concerns.

Zuckerberg wants to create 10,000 new high skilled positions in Europe (Republic of Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands but not the UK) over a 5 year span. Side note, many of these countries make it easy to seek asylum, if one feared “personal persecution.”. In a blog post, Facebook executives said the initiative is a vote of confidence in Europe’s tech sector, and that they want to see the completion of a digital single market as well as stability on international data flows. “We look forward to working with governments across the EU to find the right people and the right markets to take this forward, as part of an upcoming recruitment drive across the region.”