Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is reportedly set to rebrand its holdings company and roll its eponymous social media app in amongst Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus.
It would mirror Google’s move with Alphabet, the listed ‘top-co’ which sits above the internet giant’s search engine and advertising businesses.
Facebook plans to discuss the rebrand and restructure at its annual Connect conference on Thursday October 28, according to tech-news website The Verge.
The move comes as the social media company is under scrutiny following high profile whistle-blower reports concerning its commercial strategies, its impact on children and the exploitation of the platform by those seeking to destabilise politics.
It will also come just weeks after a technical mishap wiped out the servers for all of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Earlier this week, Facebook unveiled more detail for its plan for a ‘metaverse’ – a proposed online virtual platform that Zuckerberg believes will be the successor to the mobile internet.
Facebook, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, seeks to hire some 10,000 EU-based staff for the metaverse project.
Previously, in its second quarter results, Zuckerberg said the metaverse would allow users to “be present with people in digital spaces,” and be “an embodied internet that you're inside of rather than just looking at”.