Suggesting either “Friendster” or “Fakebook,” local social media joined in the fun of pitching names for social media giant Facebook following reports of its plans to rebrand the company behind the platform frequented by 2.85 billion users globally.
The Verge previously reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg planned to talk more about this rebranding on October 28.
Citing a source with direct knowledge on the matter, the Verge report quoted Facebook as saying it does not comment on “rumor or speculation.”
This move to rebrand also aims to focus on building a “metaverse” or an online world where people can use different devices to interact in a virtual environment, the report further stated.
READ: Facebook plans to change its name – The Verge
Despite the lack of official announcements, social media users across the globe have been having fun floating different names that Facebook could adopt for its rebranding scheme.
Filipino users, meanwhile, could not help but bring back the name “Friendster,” the name of the social network website that was founded in 2002 and shuts down its services in 2011.
For some local internet users, Friendster was known as Facebook’s predecessor with memories of artsy or gaudy user profiles, games and other applications.
“Friendster 2.0,” one user said.
Others coined names related to trolls, scams and fake social media because of the proliferation of alleged troll farms and fraudulent activities in the platform.
“Change it to Fakebook,” one user said.
“Trollbook or Scambook would be the perfect names since it has so many of them,” another user wrote.
“Dapat, Facetrolls dami kasing paid trolls na nagkakalat ng maling info, at black propaganda,” another user suggested.
Some users also quipped on changing it to “Marites,” a Filipino slang word, due to the rampant gossip-mongering in the platform.
“Mas okay na pangalan yung ‘Marites’ nalang. Daming tsismoso at tsismosa sa Facebook eh. Mga pakialamero ng buhay nang may buhay,” one user said.
Some played around Facebook’s name to form hilarious names that the company could change its brand into.
“Chisbook, new normal ng mga chismosa sa FB na chismisan,” one user said.
“Tikbook, tutal puro Tiktok naman din laman,” another user said.
“Dapat Slambook nalang,” another user commented.
The Verge stated that this possible rebranding could help Zuckerberg remove or separate himself from the intense legal scrutiny Facebook is currently facing.
“A former employee turned whistleblower, Frances Haugen, recently leaked a trove of damning internal documents to The Wall Street Journal and testified about them before Congress. Antitrust regulators in the US and elsewhere are trying to break the company up, and public trust in how Facebook does business is falling,” the report said.
The Verge also noted that company name change to expand the business is nothing new.
It cited Google’s establishment of Alphabet Inc. as a holding company in 2015 as it expanded itself beyond the search engine business.
