Immediately after Facebook announced the change of its name, the hashtag “Facebook is dead” spread on Twitter in Israel, and activists considered that the American company had not conducted brand research before launching the new name.
Researcher Nirit Wes Platt, a media specialist, wrote on Twitter, “In Hebrew, the word meta means dead. Society will laugh at this name for years to come.”
Another Twitter user tweeted: “Big mistake? Facebook’s new Meta name means dead in Hebrew. That’s amazing. #FacebookDead.”
On Thursday, Facebook announced it was changing its name to Meta, in a rebranding, with plans to build Metaverse, a virtual reality environment that the company bet would be the next major platform.
The name change comes as the blue giant struggles to defend itself, facing criticism over its market power, digital decisions and oversight for abuses on its platform.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the company’s conference on live virtual broadcasting and augmented reality that the new name reflects his organization’s ambition to build a new world of virtual reality rather than just a social networking service.
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