Facebook could change its name: an essential headlong rush for Mark Zuckerberg? – The gallery

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New name for a new life for Facebook? As Google before him, the social media giant is preparing a name change, according to The Verge, one of the American reference sites on tech. This change would take place on October 28, and would be announced at the group’s annual Connect conference.

This summer, Mark Zuckerberg already explained to The Verge that he wanted the public to see his group as a “business of the metaverse“rather than like”a company above all of social networksBehind the term “metaverse”, borrowed from science fiction and bludgeoned by Facebook, is a new acceleration of the group in the field of virtual reality, supported by heavy investments and massive recruitment. In 2014, the social network bet on this promising growing market, which would make it possible to build “the Internet of tomorrow”, but it is slow to explode.

Reducing the change of identity to a simple strategic shift would be a mistake, however. Associated with repeated scandals since Cambridge Analytica in 2018, criticized for his role in the rise of extremism, become has-been among the youngest, the name Facebook is no longer dreaming.

Facebook is more than Facebook

As a reminder, beyond its original social network, Facebook has extended its empire to Messenger, the social network of photographs. Instagram, to WhatsApp messaging or even to the virtual reality company Oculus in the 2010s.

But this has only been since the end of 2019, and the publication a new logo, that the words “by Facebook” appear on these other products. The Facebook group also includes the PrivateCore nugget, specializing in server cybersecurity and acquired in 2014, and the online translation application Jibbigo, acquired in 2013.

Concretely, Mark Zuckerberg’s company owns two of the three largest social networks in the Western world (Facebook and Instagram) and the most used messaging app (WhatsApp). As a result, it absorbs more than 23% of the global advertising market (according to eMarketer) on which it forms a duopoly with Google, and it is even more dominant in mobile advertising. In 2020, it generated 86 billion dollars in turnover (+ 22% compared to 2019), for a net profit of more than 29 billion dollars.

If Zuckerberg’s company follows Google’s example with Alphabet, its first social network would become one of the products of a larger offer, headed by the new entity. This would be a way of presenting the separation – sometimes only in appearance – of its activities, in the face of accusations of monopoly practices. This new structure would also make it possible to renew the image of the group, much damaged by repeated scandals.

One question remains: what about the role of Mark Zuckerberg? The iconic founder still embodies his company, of which he seems to control every aspect. Would such a change be an opportunity for him to take these distances?

“Facebook files”: the most devastating scandal in Facebook history

Repeated scandals and threats from regulators

If the details will be better known in the coming days, there is no doubt that the historical crisis in which Facebook is plunged plays a non-negligible role in Mark Zuckerberg’s desire to change the name of the company.

Facebook’s activity in targeted advertising, its impact on democracy, and its domination of the social media segment throughout the Western world, continues to attract the attention of regulators, in the USA like in Europe. So much so that the possibility of dismantling the group has never seemed as credible as it is today, for both economic and democratic reasons.

This option is even being pushed more and more aggressively by the left wing of the Democratic Party. And for once, Democrats and Republicans agree on the dangers posed by Facebook, which does not herald a bright future in the US Congress.

As if his situation weren’t rocky enough, the 5th company best valued in the world is also found under the blow of a new terrible scandal, certainly the most devastating of its tumultuous history.

Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former company executive, provided the Wall Street Journal a huge body of documents called the Facebook Files. These tens of thousands of pages of internal studies shed a harsh light on the group’s harmful practices.

Out of anonymity, the former Facebook executive testified before the US Congress and gave regulators something to grind by presenting the group as an amoral and cynical conglomerate, fully aware of its negative impact on democracies and even health. mental health of teenage girls who use Instagram, but who above all protect their business model.

This episode seems far from over: the Facebook communications team is already trying to protect the image of the group against other articles which should appear soon.