Netizens recall Elon Musk's Twitter description with 'meta' after Facebook rebranding

Shortly after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of his company as ‘Meta’, a post recalling Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter display picture has caught the internet’s attention. Musk, who is known for cryptic tweets and posting pictures without much explanation, caused a stir by changing his Twitter DP to a picture of a fork on the road and his description to “meta for k” in February. 

Now that Facebook has changed the firm's name to ‘Meta’, marking its entry to an “immersive universe”, one netizen on Twitter posted a screenshot of Musk’s old profile picture and stated that “someone is stealing from you” referring to the “Meta” in the description. The Tesla chief even replied to the post with a laughing emoji.

Back in February, when Musk changed his Twitter avatar, to a stock photo of a fork in the road and description to ‘metaphork’, netizens across the globe appeared to decipher the so-called ‘hidden' meaning. Billionaire’s mischievous posts have the power to both tank and balloon the stock prices. Notably, the same picture of the fork was used by Mike Hearn’s 2015 article "On consensus and forks" which talks about ‘hard fork’ and ‘soft fork’ in terms of digital currencies.  

Internet reacts to Facebook changing to 'Meta'

Zuckerberg’s major rebranding announcement of changing the company’s name to ‘Meta’, triggered a severe backlash on the internet against the tech giant. Claiming that the rebranding aims to distract from the firm's scandals, several people said that they “don’t want any part of it” and denounced the platform for its “poor” regulation of content and spreading misinformation.

It is to be noted Facebook rebranded itself to ‘Metaverse’ at a time when the firm’s image is suffering a blow especially with whistleblowers and lawmakers scrutinising its policies. 

Even renowned personalities such as producer Adam Lance Garcia, comedy writer Matt Oswalt joined the combined criticism. With the Facebook CEO's announcement, #DeleteFacebook started trending on Twitter with internet users saying “Tough Zuck.” The name change, however, shifts the company’s focus to the “metaverse” that refers to the combination of virtual and augmented reality technologies. 

But it comes in the backdrop of a whistleblower leaking hundreds of internal documents that gave the world an insight into the firm’s approach to misinformation and hate speech. 

(IMAGE: Facebook/AP)