5 Things You Need to Know About Facebook Happening Now

Facebook has been in hot water following the whistle-blower testimony before Congress in early October when a former data scientist at Facebook spoke out against the company. She spoke up about how Facebook is aware of its issues and has done little about it and now many are left questioning much about Facebook.

Now with the rebranding of Facebook to Meta, it seems as if Facebook is attempting its best to do damage control. There is so much happening in the media and the courts regarding Facebook right now that it is almost overwhelming.

Here are five things you need to know about what is going on with Facebook:

1. Mental Health Impacts

As expected, Facebook is well aware of the impact it has on the mental health and usage rates it has on its younger demographics.

Facebook has done its own research on the matter, finding that 1 in 8 of all its users has reported that overuse of social media has made their work, sleep, and relationships more problematic due to their “internet addiction,” as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Many believe that due to Facebook already knowing about its problems, it will do little to change its behaviors even after being called out for it. Facebook has had problems in the past that it has either ignored or attempted to cover up, and many people believe this will be no different.

2. Rebranding

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook’s rebranded name will be Meta.

Zuckerberg mentioned back in July that his plans for the next few years are to “effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily a social media company to being a metaverse company.”

While not much is known about the new Meta, the expectation is more technological advancements especially in the fields of augmented reality and virtual reality.

Facebook has also recently announced that it plans to hire almost 10,000 more employees to work on the metaverse in Europe.

3. Meta-morphosis

The rebranding of Facebook to Meta comes just in time to distract from the whistle-blower exposing Facebook.

While some believed that when Mark Zuckerberg appeared at Facebook’s virtual Connect conference he would maybe be discussing the recent allegations and attention that Facebook has been receiving as of late, they were instead met with Zuckerberg’s new idea for the metaverse.

The rebrand comes at the perfect time to distract people from the unwanted attention Facebook was receiving from the recent whistle-blower case. This comes as a smart move from Facebook as a way to cover up their problems by offering a new and improved idea for the future of Meta.

4. A Sinking Ship

Facebook, now known as Meta, is going all-in on its new metaverse, which may be a risky bet.

Zuckerberg claims that the idea is to expand and keep expanding into the future of technology and has said that it never really made sense to go by the singular name of one of their projects or apps as they own far more than just the social media site itself. This has happened before with Google’s idea for Alphabet.

Google also bet big money on its idea to expand into other things and break the mold of just being a search engine, though it seems to have fallen short as Google and its parent company has been losing large amounts of money due to overshooting.

Money is a big bet when it comes to changing things and Meta plans to spend Billions of dollars to get where they want, though only time will tell if it will truly work out.

5. What should be done about Facebook

There is only one question still standing after all of this: what should we do about Facebook?

Following the events of The Wall Street Journal’s published series “The Facebook Files,” the public has become increasingly aware of the fact that Facebook has known just how much harm it was causing and how it did little to nothing to truly stop it.

With Facebook’s new ideas to cover up their problems with the new rebranding of Meta, many are left wondering what should be done to deal with the problems Facebook has created.

The “Facebook Files” and the whistle-blower stepping forward have brought around a “motivating change,” with which we can hope will set a new precedent for the standards companies should uphold. If people wish to see a change in social media platforms and regulations, more will have to be done than just reading and reporting on the issue.