Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking app, Facebook, had a one-of-a-kind name when he started it. However, Zuckerberg’s choice to bring Meta into the picture this time proved to be problematic for companies with the same name. After Facebook unveiled its new identity, a small time Instagram publisher with the moniker Meta unexpectedly vanished from the platform. Quartz was the first to report on the incident.
An Instagram account with the same name existed long before Facebook changed its name to Meta. The account belongs to the same-named small-time magazine, which primarily publishes motorcycle-related stories. Following Facebook’s announcement of a new name for its parent company, the magazine posted photos of print issues with the tagline “Since 2014.” It was done to show readers that the magazine had been there for a long time before Facebook made the name famous.
Users suggested selling Meta magazine’s Instagram account to Facebook for an exorbitant price in the comments area of the company’s Instagram account. However, before the magazine’s editor-in-chief could consider any of the suggestions, the Instagram account was inexplicably wiped from the platform. The posts now show under the @readmeta handle rather than the @meta handle. The link to the old meta handle is still visible on the company website, however clicking on it results in an error. It’s unclear whether Facebook convinced the small-time publisher to change its account’s handle or simply removed it off the photo-sharing platform without notice.
Soon after the incident, Meta magazine, Ben Geise, META’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, revealed in a blog post that the magazine’s most recent issue would be the last under the name Meta. This clearly indicates that the forthcoming issues will not carry the name Meta but will come with a few additions.
“We value our individuality above all else, so when the news broke that a corporate Goliath was changing its name to Meta, it felt like a punch to the gut. With the flip of a switch our identity was suddenly watered down, and we watched our name circle the drain and wash away with something we had no control over,” he wrote in a blog post. Geise did not reveal the exact reason behind the name change on Instagram.
