Key insights:
- Facebook rebrands to Meta as human rights violations catchup to the social media company.
- Violations against Black users, and nations, have mounted over the years.
- The company’s $29 billion earnings exceeded expectations as younger users flee from the platform.
Facebook’s rebrand to Meta comes at a time when human rights violations proliferated by the platform and its role to undermine democracies around the world may finally be catching up with the platform
Facebook has been criticized for their mishandling of issues like targeted misinformation campaigns against Black users and targeting discriminatory ads to other Black users among other horrendous human rights violations like fanning the flames of enthic violence in Ethiopia. Without real changes to the social platform, Meta will continue to serve as a breeding ground for vitriol to rise to the surface aided by an algorithm that prioritizes hate.
In spite of congressional crackdowns and being unable to attract younger users, earnings still outpaced last year’s by more than 35 percent and exceeded analysts’ predictions when the company reported more than $29 billion in third quarter earnings last week..
“We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg said in a company statement. The company’s name change was to reflect a wider range of product offerings, suggesting that Facebook will live on through various other products and services, be it Instagram and WhatsApp or its coworking product Horizon Workrooms.
For humanity’s sake, the same principles of hate, neglect and prioritizing profits over people will not continue to govern the many products and services under the Facebook brand and leadership. In the event the platform is allowed to continue to operate in the way that it has heretofore, it ain’t that hard to boycott.
