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Rename planned for embattled firm

Facebook is reportedly planning to change its company name as soon as next week in an effort to distance itself from recent scandals and align itself more closely with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent obsession with the “metaverse.”

Facebook’s app and Web site would be unchanged, the Verge reported, but the parent company will rebrand in a similar structure to that of Alphabet, the holding company behind Google and its lesser-known ventures.

Zuckerberg plans to talk about the new name at the company’s annual Connect conference on Oct. 28, but it could be announced sooner, the outlet reported, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

The new name will reportedly reflect the company’s efforts to expand beyond social media — a business that has become increasingly plagued by critics and scandals.

Facebook also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, virtual reality headset business Oculus and more.

Last month, Facebook unveiled its latest product: a pair of Ray-Ban “smart glasses” — a product Zuckerberg previously called part of the company’s push to build a “metaverse company.”

When asked about the reported name change, Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesperson, said, “We don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”

Shares of Facebook ended the day 0.2 percent higher, at $340.78 .

Zuckerberg has previously spoken about his recent interest in the so-called metaverse, which he predicted could become even more ubiquitous than smartphones and the Internet.

The idea of the metaverse reflects the evolution of the Internet and the hardware that lets people access it so that the virtual and physical worlds become more closely enmeshed.

Zuckerberg has previously spoken about goods like art, clothing and media becoming important in the metaverse as augmented reality glasses — like the kind his company debuted last month — become more prolific.

In July, Zuckerberg told the Verge that, over the next several years, “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social-media company to being a metaverse company.”

The expected rebrand could also help Facebook distance its research on the metaverse from its more controversial cash-cow businesses in social media.

Earlier this month, a former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower, Frances Haugen, leaked a trove of damning internal research to The Wall Street Journal.

The documents showed, among other things, that Facebook targeted the recruitment of younger users even as its researchers found Instagram was especially harmful for young girls.

Testifying in Congress, Haugen said Facebook puts its bottom line ahead of the health and safety of its users.

Facebook has called Haugen a disgruntled employee, and said the media mischaracterized the leaked internal documents, saying that the research findings were inconclusive.

Additional reporting by Kenneth Garger