Are we supposed to believe Zuckerberg Inc didn’t make the decision to become META back before they bought the company which owned the rights to the name?
Thursday marked a new chapter in Facebook’s ongoing attempt to deal with the fallout from recent revelations about its inadequate content moderation role in sparking a mental health crises, decisions to prioritize engagement over safety, facilitation of genocide, and more: it changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc—”Meta” for short…
As it turns out, changing Facebook’s brand to Meta required sunsetting an identically-named academic software company…
Meta is a Canadian scientific literature analysis company that was founded in 2009, bought by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in 2017, and on the day of Facebook’s rebrand the Initiative announced it will shut down by 2022. Meta was the first acquisition of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and controls the URL meta.org. Notably, Facebook—er, Meta—owns meta.com.
Jeff MacGregor, CZI’s vice president of communications for science, told CNet that the organization’s assets were being transferred to Facebook but didn’t offer any specifics about the deal…In a statement explaining why its reasoning for shutting Meta, CZI alluded to “focusing” the energies of its staff, bringing “immediate value” and “greater opportunity for outsized impact” to the table.
Folks who believe these explanations, rationales, are also likely to be sitting around next April waiting for the Easter Bunny. Yum! Chocolate Meta-eggs.
Eideard 
Meta bans ‘cyber-mercenaries’ that targeted 50,000 people : Facebook’s parent company deletes accounts linked to seven private surveillance companies that spied on dissidents and journalists across 100 countries. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/17/meta-bans-cyber-mercenaries-spying-on-journalists-activists
The social media giant said on Thursday it had begun warning about 50,000 people it believed may have come under scrutiny across more than 100 nations.
7AM MST, tomorrow morning, 18th
“Facebook Owner Meta Set for $195 Billion Wipeout, Biggest in Market History” (Bloomberg) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-03/meta-set-for-200-billion-wipeout-among-worst-in-market-history
“Meta Platforms Inc.’s one-day crash may rank as the worst in stock-market history.
The Facebook parent plunged 22% in early U.S. trading on the back of poor earnings results, putting it on track to erase about $195 billion.
At current levels, that’s the biggest collapse in market value for any U.S. company. But there’s no certainty the losses will hold, especially given the recent volatility that’s whipped across technology shares. Markets have swung wildly in recent weeks, with buy-the-dip traders sometimes storming in during the final hours of the trading day.”
7AM MST, tomorrow morning, 4th