Facebook is set to rebrand the company within a week, as it aims to shake off an image tarnished by a series of whistleblower allegations and news reports.

The plans involve changing the name of the company’s holding company. Its founding social media platform - which is known internally as the “big blue app” - would keep its Facebook name.

The name could be unveiled at a company event next week or may even be announced sooner, according to a report by The Verge. This rebrand is intended to show the company’s desire to be known for more than social media.

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The Verge reports the new name may be linked to Horizon, a word associated with several virtual reality products the company is developing. Mark Zuckerberg, who launched his company in 2004, is known to be highly interested in the concept of The Metaverse - a term originally coined by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash.

The Metaverse refers to a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with other people and a computer-generated environment. The 2018 Steven Spielberg movie Ready Player One (based on a novel by Ernest Cline) depicted an example of a metaverse. In the world of video games, Fortnite is leading the way with its own idea of what a metaverse can be.

The new name could come in handy since Facebook has been rocked by a series of reputation-damaging events this year, including a whistleblower who leaked internal documents and alleged the social media company knew its products were harming children’s mental health and contributing to social divisiveness.

Frances Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, claimed in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that the company had turned off safeguards designed to prevent misinformation after Joe Biden won against Donald Trump in last year’s US presidential election. The move, she alleged, was a profit-focused move and which contributed to the insurrection at the US Capital on January 6.

Haugen has also claimed 2018 changes in algorithms which control what content people see in their newsfeeds has led to more divisiveness and discord, but which help the US company to sell more digital ads as people returned more often to the platform.

"The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook," she said, on 60 Minutes.

"And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimise for its own interests, like making more money."

An expose in the Wall Street Journal published in September revealed Facebook’s own internal research had concluded its new algorithms were contributing to political ill will and mental health problems among teenagers, especially girls. In public Facebook has downplayed external criticisms made in this vein against it.

In a blogpost responding to Haugen’s allegations, Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “At the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety and wellbeing. That’s just not true.”

Facebook has 2.89 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2021, according to Statista, making it the biggest social media network worldwide. But Zuckerberg is known for his focus on growth and fears another start-up could take his company’s place at any time.

Facebook makes the majority of its money from advertisers seeking to target its user base. This is enormously profitable for the California-based company, giving it a valuation of just under $1 trillion.

A tech giant rebranding itself is not without precedent. In 2015, Google rebranded itself as Alphabet, for its holding company, to highlight its development of new products such as self-driving cars, in addition to its core search product.

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