Clearly OT but irresistible: FB rebrands itself as "Meta"
Apologies for off-topic content, but FB announced that as part of their future focus on the Metaverse, they are officially changing their name to "Meta." IMO this is an all-timer in terms of dumb business moves. And check the calendar, it is not April 1st.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
That's what you try to do when you get bad publicity and are constantly called before congress to explain yourself. (No politics - it's a reality with their current brand problem).
October 28th, 2021 at 3:24 PM ^
Ironically, they are quite good at uniting both sides of the aisle in Congress.
Remember kids, the FB algorithm gives +5 for “angry” but only +1 for “like,” so keep those hot takes coming.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:06 PM ^
Name change is for their holding company. Similar to how Alphabet owns Google; at least that's how I read it.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:18 PM ^
Yeah, cheese corporations trying to lay claim to whole huge domains of human activity through stupid naming conventions is a bad, dumb look. Like--you already occupy too much of me and my family's life, chump. Colonize us all some more? Kiss my grits!
Now that the attempt to get us to worship some of these wankers has worn thin (Bezos, megalomaniac with a decidedly hackneyed world view; Gates, typical womanizing old guy friend of Epstein, buying his way into the WHO; Musk, taking hundreds of millions in Cali tax incentives and running for the Texas border; etc.). . .
Deeply corrupt heat-seeking device that it is, there's a valuable version of FB lurking in there somewhere--I lived all over into my 40s and it keeps me in touch with dozens of people I care about. Wish someone would get going with an alternative soon.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:53 PM ^
Trump has the Truth Network now. That one is sure to bring people together.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:59 PM ^
That's correct. And is basically means nothing. Everyone will still refer to them as Facebook. Their main app is still Facebook.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:25 PM ^
This is why people hate each other so much now. The posts and comments everyone sees are those of the most extreme opinions. So that rises to the top of every post. This leads people to think that the most extreme opinions are the mainstream of "the other side."
October 28th, 2021 at 4:43 PM ^
Yep, Facebook has been tearing us apart for the last decade. The angrier people get, the more the engage with the platform.
What is good for their business is not good for society. There ARE good things about Facebook, but there is a lot of bad too.
October 28th, 2021 at 5:01 PM ^
Twitter is just as bad, if not worse. Imagine trying to encapsulate thoughts about complex subjects in 180 characters.
Plus there is the weird permitting people to put the Hammer and Sickle next to their name. Apparently one type of mass murdering ideology is a-okay to Twitter.
Twitter is incredibly toxic and hypocritical. Yet, like Facebook, underneath it has something worthy to offer. Both need to be reformed,
October 28th, 2021 at 5:16 PM ^
Explain to me how the hammer and sickle represent less murder and genocide than the union jack? stars and stripes? rising sun? all governments murder.
October 28th, 2021 at 6:02 PM ^
Of course all governments murder, but that’s usually because there is a war. Not all governments murder their own citizens to the tune of 100 million plus in pursuit of a failed ideology.
October 28th, 2021 at 6:34 PM ^
That logic applies to the swastika too.
The Rising Sun or The Meatball as my Marine Gramps used to call, it isn’t on Twitter so irrelevant.
The Hammer and Sickle represents an ideology that was originally well intended but was soon hiijacked by psychopaths the world over. It represents an ideology, not just a country.
The Union Jack represents an Union of four countries, all three of which were invaded(two successfully) by the English who in turn were occupied and colonized by the Normans. I cannot think of a flag more illustrative of the complex and breadth of history than the Union Jack. But I completely understand why some do not like it as I do with Stars and Stripes which also reflects a complicated past.
You have a point in regards to flags. But my point was how can they ban the Swastika but allow that of other violently repressive ideologies? It reflects our tendency to ignore or excuse one groups crimes whilst focusing on those of another.
October 28th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^
Your view of killing in war depends on the circumstances and your point of view. Are you the aggressor nation (like Germany and Soviet Union invading Poland; like Japan invading China)? Are you the victim nation? Are you attacking another nation to help a victim nation? Depends on which nation you are, how you see things, and all can be seen though cynical lenses.
However, there is also the aspect of governments killing their own people. Concentration camps, genocides, and politically motivated mass starvations. A lot of the large-magnitude ones are communist regimes killing large numbers of their own people. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes Soviet gulags, purges, politically motivated mass starvations, etc., est. 10-20M people in total; People's Republic of China's labor camps, politically motivated famine, mass murders during the Cultural Revolution, est. 50-70M in total; Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields, North Korea, etc. Then, of course, all the people killed by the Nazis (not communist, but socialist).
Every nation and every surviving tribe of mankind has killed others along the way. Every single one. America is no exception. But to equate the Stars and Stripes in this regard with the hammer and sickle or with the swastika is to have no grasp of historical magnitude.
October 28th, 2021 at 5:29 PM ^
Guess it's whether you claim the symbol as a Trot or Leninist. :)
October 28th, 2021 at 6:13 PM ^
Maybe it's because the hammer and sickle kept the swastika off your Stars and Stripes.
October 28th, 2021 at 6:21 PM ^
Swastika didn’t have a blue water navy and thus could not touch the Stars and Stripes.
Also the Soviets help create the Wehrmacht. Classic example of blowback.
October 28th, 2021 at 6:57 PM ^
I think Hotel Putingrad is referring to the defense of Leningrad that is pretty much the reason the US was able to liberate Europe. It isn't pro-soviet to point that out lol.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:24 PM ^
If the US wasn’t fighting on 3 fronts at that point I could see that but Russia literally had one front with Germany. Now you can say Germany has their best their but if Japan wasn’t occupied with the US in the pacific do you think Russia holds on? I don’t. They should be thanking people like my grandfather for island hopping as well.
October 28th, 2021 at 9:11 PM ^
Oh no doubt. My grandfather was 1st division Marine Corps. Was in Okinawa and apparently also did a lot of work with the Windtalkers but I don't know a ton of details. I have this debate with my brother at every holiday, lol. We pretty much went dick-first into every major front and single handedly won the pacific theater with one hand tied behind our back.
October 29th, 2021 at 5:51 PM ^
I see we do not have a lot of history majors here.
October 28th, 2021 at 7:34 PM ^
People forget that hammer and sickle and swastika were allies at the start of WWII in Europe, with a pact to co-invade and divide up Europe. That's why the Soviets and Germans both invaded Poland and divided it between them.
But soon, the Nazis stabbed Stalin in the back and invaded the Soviet Union. That caused the Soviet Union, of course, to switch sides.
Most of the fighting and dying in Europe (like 80% of it) was between Germany and the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union perhaps could have eventually handled Germany on its own. But if Germany didn't have to worry about the other allies at all, who knows how it would have gone?
October 28th, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
As a proud member of the 50+ year old club, I'll need some help deciphering this one.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
Facebook is rebranding/naming itself. Here's a LINK
And like someone else said, this is definitely due to all the of the lawsuits/congressional hearings/criticisms they've faced in recent years
October 28th, 2021 at 3:10 PM ^
FB is short for Facebook in this case. Not football like my mind immediately jumped to (and I'm only 29, this is a sports focused blog people, be more specific in the future please.)
October 28th, 2021 at 3:10 PM ^
The default on this blog is that FB stands for football and "Meta" refers to issues with the mgoblog website.
Here, the message is that Facebook is changing its name to Meta.
Meta note: It is too OT during FB season to discuss FB changing its name to Meta.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:29 PM ^
You encapsulated my confusion perfectly. Thank you and others who responded and pointed my ship in the right direction.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:14 PM ^
"FB" and "Meta" in the context of this message board definitely made this a difficult task.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
I'm also a proud member but I did know what it meant. However, I read it as "Mets" - hahaha! Getting old and not being able to read simple things is a bitch.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:30 PM ^
facebook and football are fine for FB, but i stand with the underrepresented, the full backs!
October 28th, 2021 at 3:04 PM ^
Ron Artest is chairman of the board
October 28th, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
Let's leave that honor to World B. Free.
Meta World Peace can be Chief Marketing Officer.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:51 PM ^
Does anyone else find it ironic that a known thug should change his name to “Peace”?
October 28th, 2021 at 6:47 PM ^
I imagine this isn't going to end well.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:59 PM ^
I saw this earlier and did not have time to address it.
If the reputation that followed each of us were based upon our worst behavior-oh my!
Here specifically, with Ron Artest, I have something akin to-as dear Paul Harvey would have said "The Rest of the Story".
I was a pediatric oncology nurse for 15 years in the two largest Indiana health care systems-in Indianapolis. All the most notable professional athletes routinely came through bearing gifts and greetings to our young patients and their families. (I admit to having great bias relative to how people interact with children.) Ron Artest was one of the celebrities who graced our walls. I cannot say enough good things about how he interacted with our kids. When a grown man will get down on the floor and play with kids for hours like he did-I will never be dissuaded from the goodness he had within him-he was an A+...the very best by many miles of anyone that came through.
Now, I won't go on a full-blown rant about who was the worst. I will say that Ashley Manning was wonderful but her arrogant, aloof husband can go to hell.
Sometimes we just don't know what we don't know.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:05 PM ^
Are they going to try and trademark the work 'Meta' now like OSU tried to do with 'The'?
October 28th, 2021 at 3:49 PM ^
'Meta' Presented by Rocket Mortgage
October 28th, 2021 at 3:07 PM ^
Never Meta social media platform I didn't dislike.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:07 PM ^
Didn’t British Petroleum try a similar rebrand to “Beyond Petroleum” and then immediately spill millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico? Good times, good times
October 28th, 2021 at 3:09 PM ^
When you use the word "Beyond" in your name you have to really fuck up.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:10 PM ^
FB Michael Barrett?
October 28th, 2021 at 3:11 PM ^
Watching this be explained by Zuckerberg is...definitely a thing.
I get the desire to rebrand but I have to imagine they could have found someone a bit more, um, engaging and charismatic to announce it than the guy who is synonymous with all the bad things you've been accused/shown to have done the past 10 years or so.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:16 PM ^
Should have hired Jesse Eisenberg.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:27 PM ^
The robotic hand gestures really sold me.
October 28th, 2021 at 8:08 PM ^
Frickin creepy human being. I wonder if his friends and family ever try to talk to him about it. Or maybe they don't see it. Some must though.
October 28th, 2021 at 4:48 PM ^
Quite frankly, I have trouble identifying a more odious American in the last fifty years.
October 28th, 2021 at 5:58 PM ^
When he enters the meta, he looks like Data from TNG Star Track.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:11 PM ^
In related news, David Berkowitz changed his name to Chris Jones.
October 28th, 2021 at 3:17 PM ^
Shoulda changed it to Sam Jr., amirite?