By: Jeff Rosborg

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On October 28th, Mark Zuckerberg made the decision to change the name of Facebook Incorporations, to Meta Inc. While the social network platform Facebook will still retain its name, the idea of initiating the “metaverse,” and changing the name of the incorporation is due to Zuckerberg's belief that the name Facebook no longer fits what the metaverse has become throughout the years. He wants to create a virtual environment you can enter, which Zucherburg says would revolutionize the internet to a currently unknown extent. 

 

The significance of this event is not about the name change, though, but rather what else is happening at Facebook during this time. The topic of importance that is actually going to affect us is the leak of the Facebook Papers, a group of documents that portray Facebook as putting profits ahead of ridding it’s platform of hate, political conflict and misinformation in our world. Whether you use Facebook or not, the network is undoubtedly one of the biggest social media platforms in the world, and if a person like Zuckerberg is following the ways of a money-monger by prioritizing profit over the wellbeing of people in a society, then we should all have a problem with what is going on. 

 

Many people and news sources have correlated the name change along with the document leaks, which both happened around the same time, and they have deduced that the name change could serve as an attention-drawer so that the document leaks could quickly be forgotten about which will prevent Facebook from getting perceived negatively. It is true, though, that the idea of changing the name could have been a long time planned event, since Zuckerberg and his wife purchased a Canadian scientific literature analysis company by the name of Meta in 2017. Yet the fact that the name change was chosen to be announced right around the leak of the Facebook Papers makes the scenario all the more suspicious. 

 

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Regardless of what the truth may be, or what you may believe, one thing is certain, and that is that we cannot let the wrongdoings of people of power like Zuckerberg go over our heads and be forgotten, even if those wrongdoings do not specifically affect us on a day to day basis. It is our responsibility, unfortunately, to fight and strive to keep our communities from falling apart due to the selfish actions of others who do not care enough to fix their mistakes that will affect the innocent. Misinformation leads to mass confusion that keeps the misinformed from knowing the truth about what is going on in the world, and internet hate can lead to either violence, or the degradation of a person’s spirit which can affect their wellbeing. We, or anyone we know, can be experiencing the harmful effects of a platform that, unbeknownst to many, is destroying our democracy, and so it is only reasonable for us to need Facebook to be held accountable for their actions as expressed in the Facebook Papers. Our safety and right to truth is why we should be focussing on the leaked documents instead of the name change, regardless if the announcement of Meta was to cover up the news about the Facebook Papers or not.

 

Image Citations:

1. The Economic Times

2. Rock Paper Shotgun 

3. CNN

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