Are Things Actually Getting Better at Meta?

Maybe it’s just a pronunciation bias given PYMNTS’ roots in Boston, or perhaps it’s the result of reading a steady flow of headlines extolling the new and improved virtual future of the company most people still refer to as Facebook.

Whatever the reason, after five weeks of corporate repositioning statements and rebranding, we can’t help but say, despite what you may have seen or read, everything is not better at Meta.

At least not yet.

Also see: Facebook Rebrands as Meta in Push to Align With Metaverse

“Connection is evolving and so are we,” declares the About Us page on Facebook, before listing a quartet of focus areas where it is taking action — including promoting safety and expression, protecting privacy and security, preparing for elections and responding to COVID-19.

While CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that his company’s renaming, which came just two weeks after Frances Haugen’s initial whistleblower testimony before Congress, was done to reflect “who we are and the future we hope to build,” actual evolution is a process typically measured in millennia rather than months — but then again, everything looks and feels different in the metaverse.

Haugen was called back again last week to appear before the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s hearings on proposed reforms to the Section 230 code that has protected online publishers such as Facebook from liability claims.

Although Meta Platforms, Inc., as it is now formally known, would likely argue that its recent actions were spontaneous and proactive, rather than in response to public anger or ongoing probes from Washington, the Menlo Park, California-based company is undeniably contending with a wide-ranging legislative joust. One that will see Haugen testifying before Congress again in front of lawmakers who are hungry to rein in Big Tech and curtail social media’s outsized influence, a trend that leaves Meta with dual exposure to the shifting sands of legislative change.

People also read: Facebook Whistleblower to EU Lawmakers: Beef up Tech Rules

A Small Army

Since September, the company has been citing statistics that it has spent $13 billion on safety and security and has over 40,000 employees working exclusively to police the experience that its 3.5 billion users get when they log onto one of the company’s sites or apps, including Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram.

The company also points out that it has disabled over a billion fake accounts, and now blocks millions more from being created every day — and that it is able, with the help of its small army of enforcers, to detect and remove content that violates its evolving community standards policy before anyone has flagged or reported it.

While those are staggering numbers, and laudable fixes, they also confirm the scale and scope of the underlying problem that actually existed — and likely still exists — despite company arguments to the contrary.

At the same time, numerous corporate players and brands have recently given validation to the impending uptake of the metaverse as the place where social and commercial collaboration will take place. Surges in virtual real estate and augmented reality shoppers have come amid rekindled concerns about COVID.

Read more: Metaverse Land Prices Mirror Real-World Real Estate as Investors Flock to Virtual Worlds

As far as shares of Meta and how investors are reacting to its changing ways, it could be argued that in the short term, the past few months of probing and prodding has not been well-received, as the stock has slumped about 17% after hitting an all-time high in early September. That’s compared to a flat return for the S&P500 and the NASDAQ Composite for the same period.