Mark Zuckerburg had confirmed that Facebook will change its name to Meta.
In a live stream on Thursday evening, the CEO announced the change, which had been rumoured for weeks.
The company had been heavily promoting the 'metaverse' in recent weeks.
It comes after a controversial year for the social media giant.
Former employee, Frances Haugen, recently leaked thousands of documents and gave testimony to US senators this month in which she said Facebook put “astronomical profits before people”.
The term ‘metaverse’ is used to describe the concept of a future of the Internet, made up of 3D virtual spaces linked into a virtual universe.
It was coined by Neal Stephenson’s in his 1992 sci-fi novel, Snow Crash, referring “to a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space.”
Zuckerberg told his employees at the end of June about the new “ambitious initiative”.
The name change would mean Facebook would be put under an umbrella like sister platforms Instagram, Whatsapp, and Oculus.
It comes as Facebook has been facing intense scrutiny over its business practices, and for PR crisis such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
