Is Facebook’s brand change to MetaVerse going to distract attention from its weakened platform issues

The community is abuzz with a feeling that Facebook, no MetaVerse should lead with HOW they are going to fix the platform vulnerabilities, security and privacy issues they have known about and hidden.

What was expected from an announcement of this venture is transparency and accountability. It is not likely a brand new shiny name will cause the public, who loves Facebook, if it would only fix its privacy, security, and social issues to forget that the Whistleblower issues. the lack of confidence and the social issues they ignored going to baffle us with the future potential so much that we forget the present they left us with?

MetaVerse promises to continue to build technology to connect people. It continues ownership of the suite they owned, but in what seems to be a “corporate whistleblower protection program” it is changing its name. With the change, will they take seriously the Platform vulnerabilities they are charged with, or does the name change just buy them more change to ignore accountability?

Key Notes of what is changing

• focus on futuristic, immersive virtual reality social experiences known as the metaverse
• The corporate name Facebook that oversaw a suite of social media experiences is now Meta
• Meta will still own Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp but wants more of the TikTok Youth market share.

What is in a name or rebrand effort? Well if you compare the United States Marshal’s Witness Protection Program to Facebook’s Whistleblower Rebranding Program the key differences is willful cooperation with legality, compliance, and consumer protection.

“Now look, I get that a lot of people aren’t sure that we are serious about this,” a grinning Zuckerberg told the audience. “I know that we don’t have exactly the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly.” He was met with an embarrassing silence from the audience.

~ Mark Zuckerberg at F8 developer conference 

How do you feel about this rebranding effort?

I think many who know the risks of social media find the immersive rewards of connection worth the risk, to a point. However when thinking of Facebook a company whose response to serious “criminal social compliance issues against its users”, when presented with a new company name and promises of an immersive virtual reality, must speak out on how the “virtual reality of broken promises” has damaged public trust, and that focus must be at the core of programs.

Facebook or MetaVerse, a company by any name, but offer a point by point plan for how they will restore trust, not just offer new methods to track, exploit, and violate the socially vulnerable and calling it a virtual reality game.

• Produce Privacy corrective actions not to track users and come clean about Facebook patent that does track users 
• Accelerating known fake news, creating outrage and extremism, to drive “shares”
• Honor Privacy Policy User controls to reveal what was hidden by their users
• Stop categorizing and tracking Facebook Users 57 varieties of most sensitive data

Dawn C Simmons LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest – CxO Leader