MUMBAI: As it faces global scrutiny for its use of algorithms to allegedly manipulate users experience in various ways, social media giant Facebook, Inc today announced a change in its corporate name to Meta Platforms, Inc. The company also unveiled its new logo - a blue infinity symbol. There is however no change in the names of the apps Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. 

The name change was announced by co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a Facebook Connect augmented virtual reality conference and according to him is a rebranding done to reflect the company's growing ambitions beyond social media.  

Making the announcement Zuckerberg said, "To reflect who we are and the future we hope to build, I'm proud to share that our company is now Meta," adding that Meta's focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.

According to the announcement, it's the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, ushering in a new chapter for the company.

"The next platform will be even more immersive - an embodied internet where you're in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build," Zuckerberg wrote in a founder's letter.

Zuckerberg added, "From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first. That means that over time you won't need a Facebook account to use our other services."

According to Zuckerberg, the world is at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet, and it's also the next chapter for the company and expressed his hope that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion users. 

Facebook has come in severe criticism in recent times for its big data algorithms that are used in personalized content creation and automatization, however, this method can be used to manipulate users in various ways.

In the past Facebook has been criticized for not doing enough to limit the spread of fake news stories on their site, especially after the 2016 United States presidential election, with claims that Donald Trump would not have won if Facebook had not helped spread what they claim to have been fake stories that were biased in his favour.