What is the objective of Facebook changing its name to Meta

November 08, 2021

By Esteban Magnan

New leaks show that the company is not unaware of the toxic effects on users of its business model. Despite promises to neutralize them, Mark Zuckerberg's corporation does not change course because it would imply reducing the extraordinary profits that it increases year after year. What are you looking for with your new strategy

Internal Facebook documents leaked by Frances Haugen , the company's former product manager, provide new details about the negative effects of the business model on society , its awareness by the company and the lack of interest in reducing them. Although most of the problems had already been pointed out by different organizations, the press or workers, the internal reports offer elements that reveal the inability of this corporation to change its course, even more so when it evaluates the success quarter by quarter in balance sheets with the growth of your windfall profits.

Haugen found during his two years on Facebook the worst work environment of his entire work experience, which includes Google and Pinterest, among others. His team's task was to reduce the circulation of the most toxic messages during the 2020 US presidential elections.

Once the election was over, this working group was dissolved. For Facebook, it was time to let the algorithm do what it knows: basically, detect the most compelling messages so that people spend more time in front of the screen and more advertising can be shown to them , where 98 percent of their income comes from .

The main knot of the problem is that the most toxic posts are the ones that most challenge us to react, share, answer, criticize, and be outraged. Far from considering this to be a problem, the algorithm, programmed to prioritize reactions ( engagement ), circulates them and feeds that toxic mechanism. In this way, Facebook chooses on a daily basis between its economic benefit or protecting society from false news and hate speech .

Complaints

Haunted for years by complaints for sharing user data, allowing the circulation of conspiracy theories, suspected of Russian interference in the 2016 elections in the United States, manipulating adolescents so that they cannot leave the screen even if it affects them , Mark Zuckerberg strives to change the axis of the controversy, although without touching the business model that began 17 years ago and that transformed him into one of the richest men in the world .

As part of that goal, he changed the name of the Facebook corporation to Meta and announced with great fanfare a huge investment to build the Metaverse , a virtual reality space in which, supposedly, all kinds of activities can be done as if was physically in that chosen place.

From the Capitol to India

Frances Haugen decided to resign from Facebook after the taking of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, but not before copying thousands of documents that the media in various countries are still processing. For her, this attack was proof of the consequences of the toxicity of the social network , which amplifies harmful speeches and of the corporation's little interest in reducing them drastically and systematically.

Some of the leaked documents show that many of the Capitol raiders posted in advance on Facebook groups that they would travel to Washington for the protest, what weapons they would carry and the willingness to "hang" Vice President Mike Pence , considered a traitor.

One of the groups created called "Stop the theft", where an alleged manipulation of Republican votes was denounced, grew at a rate of 100 people every 10 seconds thanks to an algorithm that searched for all who might be interested in joining. When it reached 333,000 members who spoke publicly of violence, Facebook closed it but soon others appeared and the company's moderators could not cope.

This scandal that ended with one death and injuries in Washington is just a true reflection of the chaos that Facebook is fueling in other countries. In India , as leaked documents explain, hate speech is out of control and the company lacks enough moderators who speak dozens of Indian languages.

There is already a precedent from 2016 in Myanmar , where a campaign based on fake news finally triggered a massacre of about 30,000 Muslims from the Rohinga minority and 700,000 more had to flee the country. Facebook had been warned for years by different organizations about what was happening in that country, but they dismissed the warnings. The two moderators who spoke one of the Myanmar languages were overwhelmed and could not accomplish this task with relative efficiency.

Vicious circle

Internal studies were also leaked that indicate the impact of Instagram , bought in 2012, among adolescents and young people with suicidal fantasies or some kind of problem with their body image, especially women.

In this social network, in which images are prioritized, it encourages selecting "perfect" moments, fostering a vicious circle in which everyone seems to have a splendid time except the one who ends up in front of the screen feeling that their life, in comparison, is a disaster.

Even the corporation's reports indicated that these effects were worse on Instagram than its competitors because, for example, Snapchat points to a more humorous use of filters and TikTok to sometimes ironic choreography. Facebook had to suspend the launch of a version of Instagram for children because of the scandal.

The list of problems continues with, for example, Instagram accounts that proliferate convincing young Arab women to work in other countries but end up caught in human trafficking networks. app-store-ban-human-trafficking / index.html "style =" background-color: rgb (255, 255, 255); "> Apple had already threatened the corporation with downloading the app if they did not delete those accounts.

Another of the leaks indicated that he had maintained the posts of some celebrities despite violations of company rules, something that Zuckerberg had expressly clarified would not happen. You can also remember the " blackout " of a few weeks ago.

While none of these problems originate with Facebook, the social network is a great way to amplify them thanks to the power of artificial intelligence among the more than 3.5 billion monthly users of its platforms . And stopping that efficiency would hurt the business.

Employees leave the company because, despite evidence of damage, no measures are taken to affect engagement . The corporation even has trouble getting workers because of its bad image and needs to shake off the burden before it affects its business. So Zuckerberg decided to make an ambitious move .

Metaverse

Faced with the succession of scandals, Zuckerberg sought to regain the initiative with two announcements .

1. The change of name of the Facebook corporation to Meta to take off its other ventures on the social network.

2. Within this corporation, two segments were created: one for the family of apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp are the best known) and the other for virtual reality ventures called Reality Labs .

In the latter, the path started by the Oculus rift will be deepened to reach the construction of a very ambitious Metaverse, a kind of immersive parallel universe that will be accessed with virtual reality glasses . To the more than 10,000 employees that it already has working on this project, it will add another 10,000 in Europe and plans to invest 10 billion dollars in the coming years.

Metaverso will require special devices with high processing power, a robust environment and an excellent internet connection so that users can interact in real time and, for example, as shown in the promotional video , play ping pong.

This objective will not be achieved in the short term and it will hardly ever be accessible to the majority, since close to half of the world's population does not have an internet connection today .

Metaverso seems more like a business need to attract more users for longer, capture more data and create more possibilities to monetize the experience through advertising or other mechanisms. The bet is that the dazzling of the attractive novelty inhibits the question of whether it is the users who need something like that or is it the company.

Mark Zuckerberg wants to be seen as a new Steve Jobs for his disruptive ability to build the future, and as Bill Gates for being a great philanthropist. The Metaverse seems to be the way to achieve the first goal. For the second, he has the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a foundation that channels his donations, although without the favorable impact on his image that he would like.

Balance

Why does Facebook / Meta promise new challenges instead of correcting the worst part of its effects despite the leaks, the denunciations and the regular calls for Zuckerberg to testify in the United States Congress?

The answer is found in the quarterly earnings reports. The last one , on October 25, shows that Facebook increased its turnover 33 percent year-on-year. Although it is less than 56 percent of the previous quarter, the balance is explained in the figures that fell after the " pandemic effect ."

In the last quarter, the company's net profit was 9,194 million dollars, 17 percent more than in the previous period . Against these numbers clash the protests of workers, the population, politicians, child therapists, organizations that fight against trafficking. But what truly terrifies the corporation is that the time that users spend on its social networks continues to be reduced. For this reason, taking any measure that reduces it even more is very difficult to do.

Mark Zuckerberg said, once again, that the leaked reports do not reflect what makes his company positive. The investigations continue but it is not known, for now, how to divert the toxic inertia of a corporation that increases its turnover year after year by billions of dollars.