What is Meta?
November 17, 2021
By Faisal Ahmed
On October 28th, 2021 one of the world’s largest social media companies, Facebook, hosted their annual conference and announced large-scale restructuring of the company. They aim to rebrand Facebook and its subsidiary companies (Instagram/Whatsapp) under a larger parent organization they’re calling “Meta.” You may have seen the “from Meta” text when you open any of their applications on your phone. The move by Zuckerberg has intrigued many as Facebook stands on the forefront of social media. To understand the change better let’s explore the story of Facebook, and a few explications of the transformation.
Facebook was founded in February of 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates across the river at Harvard University. It initially started as a singular social media platform that helped college students connect with each other. You would sign up using a “.edu” email address and find other friends on the platform. People would interact with each other through their profiles, which had pictures they’d posted, their relationship status, and any other updates people wanted to share. By the end of 2005, after expanding to high school students and universities overseas, they grew to over six million active monthly users. This growth continued to explode through the early 2010s, when they hit one billion monthly active users in 2012 which was the first time any social network had received this much engagement. Later in 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram. Instagram was and still is a burgeoning social media platform which was more popular amongst younger demographics than Facebook. Another key acquisition of Facebook was Whatsapp, which is more of a group messaging platform popular internationally. Facebook acquired Whatsapp, and Oculus the Augmented Reality company in 2014.
Given that backstory, and their unmatched user engagement it seems as though Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be satisfied being cemented as the ruler of the social media platforms. However, a number of recent controversies have been criticizing the role of social media in our daily lives. Particularly critics have charged social media with causing more inflammatory social relations, particularly with political discourse. They accuse the algorithms of Facebook and its subsidiaries of not only being incapable of regulating, but actually promoting sensational content. This polarizes their users and relationships between people at large. This has led to violence and political turmoil not only in the United States but also abroad. These critiques specifically charge Zuckerberg of perpetuating this mechanism of polarization in order to increase engagement with the platform.
As a result, people anticipate Facebook is seeking to distance themselves from these accusations. Rebranding as Meta is a step in that direction. Furthermore, they want to transition from being just a social media platform, to pioneering the “Metaverse.” In Connect 2021, Zuckerburg described the future of the company as ushering in virtual social interactions by reproducing in-person social interactions, digitally. They’ve launched beta versions of calling platforms through their Facebook messenger platform, and are starting to explore using Oculus to enhance the Augmenting Reality gaming experience. Meta continues to expand the experiences they seek to provide, and aim to lead the predicted digital future.
Sources:
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/facebook-statistics/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Facebook
https://tech.fb.com/connect-2021-our-vision-for-the-metaverse/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/25/what-are-the-facebook-papers/