And yes, I do happen to think this rebranding/renaming of their shiny new thing is a blatant attempt at misdirection and distraction.
I think that people that fail to see this simply do it because they choose to do it since all the sights are there. Very few countries are covering just how dark things run behind Facebook. We already knew that a massive company harvesting an incredible pile of user/personal information isn't always a good sight, and I think the first "public" perception of how big is Facebook reach was when the Cambridge Analytical case hit the news[1]. Fast forward some time to the present we've got to thank Mrs. Frances Haugen - an ex-product manager at Facebook now a recognized whistleblower of the company [2]- for providing the world a pile of documents that show how they do not care about the end users. Whoever is able to spend some time - which I recommend - I highly encourage to just "loose" yourself in the pile of documents that were exposed[3]. From the pile of information, I highlight some here[4][5][6] (I haven't went through all the documentation sadly) - but there are reports that there will be a lot more to be revealed daily in the weeks that follow. At least there are news outlets that throw the suspicion out in the air[7] and doesn't let it sway from their true intentions:
The re-branding comes amid a barrage of news reports over the past month after Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistleblower, released a trove of internal company documents to news outlets, lawmakers and regulators.
Also, fuck Facebook and Zuckerberg. Both of them are the reason (along with the existence of smartphones) why 20 people can be standing in a room together and not be genuinely social--because they're on a cheap substitute, i.e., social media. It's sickening, and I'll have no part of it.
This grinds my gears a lot - what stories will we have in the future about our relationships and good times spent with our colleges? I don't want to look back on my life and think that I spent a good chunk of my it browsing endlessly on social media (which I don't thank god) but I really don't think that people make this kind of introspection nowadays. It saddens me whenever I see groups of people that are all focused on their smartphones, sometimes even commenting each others social media instead of enjoying the fact that they are together and that they should seize the moment because one never knows where we might be tomorrow.
And as for the Metaverse? I don't have the sufficient knowledge to have an opinion about it even thought that it may even the future. However I would really like for them to solve their "infrastructure" problems of today before thinking into jumping into the future.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal[2]
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/24/frances-haugen-i-never-wanted-to-be-a-whistleblower-but-lives-were-in-danger[3]
https://www.protocol.com/facebook-papers[4]
https://www.theverge.com/22743753/facebook-tier-list-countries-leaked-documents-content-moderation[5]
https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-knew-about-failed-police-abusive-content-globally-documents-2021-10-25/[6]
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-failed-the-world/620479/[7]
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-name-to-meta.html