Facebook, the longstanding tech giant, recently changed its name to Meta, but why? Facebook has slowly been expanding its business, and they have recently begun creating a new virtual reality world called the metaverse. This shift in focus, according to Inc.com, is the main reason for Facebook’s name change.

First, let us get into Meta’s history. Facebook was established in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg as well as three other Harvard students. This website, at the time, was used by the students of Harvard to upload information about everyday activities such as classes, clubs, and sports. Eventually, its popularity grew and it spread throughout the Ivy League schools. At the end of its first year, it had just over 1 million users, but according to Britannica Encyclopedia, even then it still trailed behind MySpace by four million users. The next year, however, proved to be where Facebook earned its popularity. Starting in 2005, Facebook released an update that allowed people to be tagged and an unlimited amount of photos to be uploaded. At this time Facebook was open to high schools and universities all over the world causing Facebook to rise to one of the tech giants we know today. Throughout the entire process, Mark Zuckerberg continued to improve his website by adding the aforementioned updates, and because of this, it appeared likely he was focused on making his company the biggest social media platform.

According to Bloomberg.com, a study shows that today, “teen activity is down 16% year after year on the Facebook application,” which could be a possible reason for the name change. Meta owns a variety of other platforms and technology that keeps their company going showing that there could be a deeper reason. On top of Facebook, Meta owns Instagram, Oculus VR, and Whatsapp, as well as a variety of other platforms. According to Inc.com, The name change to Meta was more than just a name change. This change was a complete shift in the company’s focus and ideals for the future. While combining all their companies under one name may seem convenient, Mark Zuckerberg, founder, chairman, and CEO of Meta has recently stated in one of his founder’s articles, “The metaverse is the next frontier in connecting people, just like social networking was when we got started.” The metaverse is a relatively new concept, and there are many applications of such a technology.

The metaverse, according to the website Inc.com, is a virtual reality world where people can socialize, interact, play games, and be transported to any place at any time inside of this virtual world. The book and the movie Ready Player One are just like this. The metaverse is a world where people can enter the metaverse online to virtually meet with their colleagues from work instead of traveling to a destination. Family, friends, and co-workers can be transported and meet at any place from any time in a virtually simulated environment such as the wild west. That is the world that Mark Zuckerberg envisions, even though it is still some ways away.

While Inc.com had plenty of good things to say about the new metaverse, they also gave plenty of reasons why it might not be such a good thing that Meta is going ahead with this. Before Facebook changed to Meta this October, Facebook has had a plethora of privacy lawsuits and cases filed against them. Facebook itself, the apps it owns, and a large number of third-party organizations, track their users through their software and ultimately end up selling the information. According to Geoffery A. Fowler, writer for the Washington Post, “Facebook may be free, but you pay for it with your privacy. And Facebook keeps raising the price.” With all the privacy issues and lawsuits in the past, is a metaverse controlled by Facebook a virtual world that will be safe to enter and exist in?