Whistleblower Frances Haugen blasts Facebook over Meta rebrand

In her first public address since she leaked a trove of damaging documents about Facebook’s inner workings, whistleblower Frances Haugen urged her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to step down and allow change rather than devoting resources to a rebrand.

“I think it is unlikely the company will change if [Mark Zuckerberg] remains the CEO,” Haugen told a packed arena on Monday at the opening night of the Web Summit, a tech fest drawing dozens of thousands to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon.

The former Facebook product manager replied in the positive to the question of whether Zuckerberg should resign, and added: “Maybe it’s a chance for someone else to take the reins... Facebook would be stronger with someone who was willing to focus on safety.” 

The social network, with nearly 3 billion users, changed its name to Meta last week, in a rebrand that focuses on building the “metaverse,” a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet.

Commenting on the rebranding, Haugen said it made no sense given the security issues that have yet to be tackled. “Over and over Facebook chooses expansion and new areas instead of sticking the landing on what they've already done,” Haugen told an animated crowd which frequently burst into applause as she spoke.