Mark Zuckerberg really wants you to pay attention to Meta and not Facebook.
At Facebook’s annual conference this morning Australian time, the tech company’s ruler announced it was rebranding to Meta and showed off its ideas for a “3D social space”.
Zuckerberg’s focus on its new things is understandable in a way. Even if you’d never heard of the company before this week’s Facebook Papers, you’d still probably think it needed a fresh start. Something exciting like the promise of a new virtual world where anything is possible. Something that sounded like an idea out of a science-fiction novel (which, by the way, is where it got the name).
In another way, it’s deeply repugnant that the company continues to habitually deny or downplay its role in making the world much worse while making billions upon billions of dollars. It’s facilitated genocide. It’s been part of the radicalisation of huge numbers of people. It’s amplified hate and misinformation. And it’s done all this knowing that it’s doing this.
The PR moves of a company like Facebook are endlessly fascinating because they’re obvious and intriguing. We love being savvy and dissecting “narratives” and “spin”. When Zuckerberg said, “Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future,” it’s hard not to imagine this as as wishful thinking.
It’s also fair to point out that Meta, so far, is just vapourware. All the carefully workshopped uses that Zuckerberg awkwardly showcased don’t exist. Footage that’s supposed to show how Meta will blend the real world and virtual reality are just edited versions of reality. Ironically, what Facebook chose to showcase isn’t real — and may never be.
The idea of betting against incredible advances in technology isn’t wise. It’s been 14 years since the iPhone was invented, changing every facet of our lives. It’s also been 17 years since Facebook was invented, and look at everything it’s been able to do! It’s more than conceivable that at some point, potentially soon, potentially even from Facebook, we will see a widespread adoption of virtual and augmented reality technologies.
What the decision should be viewed as is an attempt by Facebook to plant its flag as the company of the future and not Boomerbook with an ageing user base. It’s not about optics — it’s about a promised new era in technology where Facebook hopes to be the first mover.
The problems that the company has shown aren’t necessarily inherent to the platform itself, but its enormous bureaucracy struggling to solve the problems that its scale and its autocratic leader have created. Whether you call it Facebook, Meta, or whatever, this tech giant will still be the same company.
Even if you take a step back from the company itself, problems with other tech platforms show the limit of the internet built around a handful of powerful companies who make their money by selling access to their users.
If we are headed into a new age of technology, there’s an opportunity to rewrite the rules and change the balance of power. It didn’t take long for Myspace to go from being the biggest thing online to being a thing of the past.
If Meta is the future, Facebook has shown that it shouldn’t be part of it.
As an experiment, I archived my Facebook account a couple of months ago. This means that it still exists, it’s just not active at the moment. Should I wish, I can reactivate it at any time.
The result of the experiment has been interesting. I’ve missed one thing only. The suburb that I live in has its own group page, which is a good way of keeping in touch with neighbours and what is happening locally. Other than that, I think my life is better without Facebook. The best part is that I no longer have the continual urge to pick up my phone to see what’s happening in the world, or if there’s been any interesting posts since the last time I looked. It’s been a remarkably liberating experience. I’m certainly in no hurry to reinstate my online presence.
I encourage anyone else with a Facebook account to try the same. If you feel, after a few weeks, that Facebook is an important part of your life and you wish to continue using it, then fine. If it makes life better, go for it. But if, like me, you find that life is better without it, and if you are concerned about the power of the platform and the impact it is having on societies the world over, then keep it archived. Like broadcast media before it, the ‘product’ that Facebook sells to its advertising customers is your attention. If you no longer give it your attention, it has nothing to sell.
Couldn’t agree more. I was on Facebook for three or four years, and then smelled a rat. It was a lazy way to communicate, it was an idealised and dishonest version of what people wanted you to see on their pages, it was dangerous in terms of trolls and hackers, it was exploitative, manipulative and utterly without a conscience. I mentioned this in Crikey about ten years back, and got about forty dislikes and a series of abusive replies. If I’d have slagged off at the Scientologists or the NRA, I’d have expected the hate, but Facebook???
I just wrote in a comment saying the many reasons why I dropped out of Facebook, and the Comments moderator wouldn’t allow it. WTF? There was no swearing, no personal insults, and no political machinations. Suffice to say, Graeski, that I don’t use it anymore, and I don’t miss it.
Me too, an uncritical comment, guess some key words….. feel Crikey is being very cautious nowadays about comments (new target for MPs’ defamation ‘SLAPPs’); had comments emerge after days of first moderation, then disappearance to then reappear….. so much for the Lib’s ‘freedom of speech’ in Oz 🙂
Both for this disappeared…. 🙂
Oh, they finally let it in.
One thinks Facebook is back to where it was 5-10 years ago; when it was losing many younger users but lucked into new middle aged market and their new smartphone obsessions….
Personally, simply deleting the app from one’s phone (esp. messenger) and checking on desktop once a day, maximum, is sufficient (though some users cannot walk away….).
Useful for community groups but this can be compromised by trolls etc. sabotaging any civil behaviour or discussion, especially in larger groups (and the speed/amplification of sharing); advertising is hit or miss (Google far superior, especially organic SEO), but maybe product branding.
Presently in Oz we witness or hear much gnashing of the teeth about ethics, morals, hate speech etc. from nativist conservative MPs, NewsCorp etc. and the need to constrain ‘Big Tech’, social media etc. yet they are dependent upon the same for self promotion….
I went full delete and my real life friends missed me. Aww. I have a an alias account with just feeds from comedy and humour pages. Now FB is awesome. For me. As for friends phone a good friend is working well.
I opened a Facebook account in 2007.
I archived a Facebook account in 2007.
I’ve never missed it. I was really hoping for a non apple/google operating system, such as a Linux phone. But it got nixed. I also had a Microsoft phone for several years and liked it, it also got shutdown by Microsoft a few years ago.
My point is that few alternatives exist and it’s hard to rail against the current big players.
William Gibson always struck me as wayyy too optimistic.
Stephen Colbert’s brilliant parody of Zuckerberg’s meta announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Em8ajNYLV0