Facebook’s rebranding as Meta succeeded in overshadowing coverage of the whistleblower disclosures known as the “Facebook Papers,” according to a top executive within the company.
Business Insider reports that according senior Facebook executive Chris Cox, the company’s rebranding to Meta was successful in obscuring the media attention given to the so-called “Facebook Files,” a exansive set of whistleblower disclosures. This flies in the face of previous remarks from Mark Zuckerberg and others.
When Facebook announced its renaming to Meta in October 2021, the move was officially attributed to a new focus on the metaverse. However, the timing led to widespread speculation that the change was related to the whistleblower disclosures that were being reported globally. CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed such connections, calling them “ridiculous.”
Yet, executive Chris Cox did just that when asked by an employee about the success of the new name. During a company-wide Q&A with employees, Cox reportedly said the name change was successful, explaining his measure of success was the amount of press coverage of the name change compared to the whistleblower disclosures. “It was more than double the volume of the Facebook Papers coverage,” Cox said on the call. He added that the coverage was also “neutral to positive in tone.”
“That’s the kind of thing that we only could have dreamed of when we did the change in terms of press coverage,” he went on. “And it was a really big deal because Facebook Papers was a big story, especially inside the US.”
The rebranding came three weeks after whistleblower Frances Haugen went public, revealing information that was being reported on at the Wall Street Journal. The revelations were covered by the press globally, and the timing of the name change led to speculation that it was related to these disclosures.
While some inside the company were surprised by Cox’s candid acknowledgment, others praised the name change as a strategic move. Eric Schiffer, CEO of The Patriarch Organization, said of the name change: “It is absolutely a genius move to shift away, to rebrand to the metaverse, and wash away the past pain.”
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan