“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
This is Juliet’s line when she tells Romeo that the naming of things are irrelevant. Whether we decide to call a rose a daffodil or an orchid, its characteristics will never change. The flower will smell just as sweet.
Mark Zuckerberg, though, doesn’t seem to believe this.
On October 28, Facebook formally announced that it will be changing its corporate name to Meta. Zuckerberg stated that the name change was “an effort to recast the company’s public image from battered social network to tech innovator focused on building the next generation of online interaction, known as the ‘metaverse’ ”
Facebook’s reputation has been going downhill and it has faced a barrage of criticism after Frances Huagen, a former employee, leaked internal documents. These documents showed the misinformation on its platforms, content moderation failures, and child safety issues.
Should this name branding take attention away from the problems that Facebook has failed to fix?
To many people, it seems as if the rebranding from Facebook to Meta are just evasive tactics used by Zuckerberg. He demoted Facebook to being just one the company’s many subsidiaries like Instagram and Whatsapp rather than being the corporate name in an effort to overhaul Facebook’s reputation.
A new name may be able to push away some of the bad press and negative associations, but Meta will have the same characteristics as Facebook. Changing the name of the company shows that Facebook aka Meta is not planning to address any of its problems and find solutions.
There are many companies that have gone on Facebook’s track and rebranded themselves.
The private security firm Blackwater changed its name twice to try to dissociate itself from the killing of Iraqi civilians. The tobacco giant Philip Morris was renamed “Altria”, presumably to make you think of the concept of altruism rather than, say, terminal lung cancer. Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, dropping the “fried” as consumers increasingly looked for healthier choices. (The Guardian)
Although many name changes have occurred, the characteristics of any of the companies haven’t really changed. We need to remember that every company faces problems that have not been perfectly solved, but they need to find ways to solve these problems, instead of evading them. The problems within the company still exist, but some might have been forgotten by the general public. We have short memory spans, so it wouldn’t be surprising that in a couple of years, we forget about Facebook and watch Meta reach new heights.
All we can do now though is wait and see.
