On Thursday, the Chief Executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the social network is rebranding to the name Meta. The change comes with the company’s efforts to transition to the “metaverse,” referring to how Zuckerberg sees the next digital frontier— a fuse of virtual and augmented reality technologies.

The network’s iconic branding, the big blue-and-white letter ‘F,’ will be altered to an infinity-shaped symbol with similar colors. The brand’s other apps, such as Instagram and Whatsapp, will not be changed, but the alterations set the precedent for what technology could be like in the coming years. 

Subsequently, the renaming could help Facebook distance themselves from the recent controversies it has faced regarding its usage of the platform to spread hate speech and misinformations. In the past few weeks, the company has seen some of the most scrutiny in its history, making the name change’s timing potentially beneficial for the company’s image. 

Lawmakers and the public have criticized its photo-sharing social media platform Instagram for its role in harming teenagers’ self-esteem, and their questionable role in boosting misinformation and sparking unrest with provocative content.