[cherrineshorgt]

As America's favorite and most hated social media company, Facebook has been moving continuously this year. This year, Mark Zuckerberg worked together to promote the concept of "meta universe" in many fields, making this trend even blow to China on the other side of the earth, which attracted many domestic Internet companies to start the "meta universe Carnival" this summer.



Zuckerberg said that building a meta cosmic world has been his dream since he was a child. And is that really the case?



In Lei Feng's previous report, an insider close to the top of Facebook told Lei Feng that after Cambridge analysis triggered a privacy dispute and issued a virtual currency Lebra, Facebook urgently needs to hype a new concept that can avoid supervision, so as to reduce the anti-monopoly pressure of the U.S. government and obtain new growth points, At the same time, improve the image of the company in the hearts of the people.



"Meta universe" is a perfect concept.



On the one hand, metauniverse is "high-tech" enough and takes a long time to cash in. This will give Facebook enough time to escape public criticism and make the public think its "pie" is excusable.



On the one hand, metauniverse is "cool" enough to win the favor of more consumers and users, and win the sympathy of the government. Its initiatives include pushing the VR head display quest2, cooperating with the famous glasses brand "leipeng", claiming to innovate the remote office process with XR equipment, etc.



The Washington Post also wrote that in less than a decade, Facebook has changed from a company known as the symbol of American innovation to a symbol of "technology evil". This has led to a global wave of legislation and litigation against the technology industry.



After the 2016 presidential election, people's views on Facebook slowly changed. At that time, it was claimed that Russian agents spread false information on the company's platform. After the Cambridge analysis company privacy scandal, Facebook's position in people's hearts fell further.



The large-scale antitrust lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission is gaining momentum. Facebook's efforts in the metauniverse are not only a public relations gimmick, but also Zuckerberg's "luring the tiger away from the mountain" in order to divert Facebook's public opinion controversy. According to several insiders of Facebook, this is a political strategy aimed at repairing the relationship between government and enterprises and re formulating the response for the next round of Internet enterprise supervision.



In Facebook's Washington, D.C., office, metauniverse is already a complete political move: Facebook is hiring a think tank to discuss creating standards and protocols for the upcoming virtual world. Some say this has enabled Facebook to turn public opinion away from urgent but unpleasant things like the massive antitrust lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission last year. Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president for global affairs and communications, plans to deliver a speech at the Atlantic Festival, a creative rally in Washington, partially funded by the social media giant, entitled "a journey to the meta universe".



"As long as the new technology is avant-garde enough, the regulatory pressure will be reduced. Facebook can buy itself many years." Joan Donovan, research director of the center for media, politics and public policy, said.



Paul Barrett, deputy director of the stern Center for business and human rights at New York University, said: "at present, many companies will send some signals of reconciliation to the government and the general public. But Mark Zuckerberg is looking at the metauniverse. He seems to have no response to the voice of the public."



So why do the U.S. government and users have increasingly negative comments on Facebook? Lei Feng listed seven major disputes Facebook has faced in the past few years:



1. Divulge user information



In 2018, the "Facebook data disclosure" scandal shocked the world broke out. Facebook was accused of collecting 87 million user profiles, which attracted complaints from netizens. In addition to being fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission, "datagate" has also achieved Mark Zuckerberg's darkest moment - going to the US Congress for questioning.



2. Algorithm intervention election



In the "Facebook data disclosure" broke out in 2018, Facebook sold the data to a data company called "Cambridge analysis", which used a large amount of user data to help Trump's election. Facebook pushed election advertisements in favor of trump for a large number of users through a biased algorithm. Later, the president of Cambridge analysis mentioned that it was the use of such technology that enabled trump to successfully defeat Hillary Clinton and win the 2016 US election.



3. Monopolize social media



Through repeated acquisitions, four of the top five apps in the world so far are "FB family bucket": WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger and instagram. In August this year, because Facebook forcibly acquired WhatsApp and instagram with its market monopoly, the Federal Trade Commission filed another lawsuit to split them.



4. User information security risks



The $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp is seen as one of Facebook's most controversial acquisitions. During the acquisition, Facebook promised WhatsApp independence to avoid monopoly disputes caused by the acquisition of competitors. Finally, in September 2020, Facebook announced that WhatsApp, Messenger and instagram would realize the platform rocket launcher, which also brought the risk of data commonality between platforms. After the deepening of interconnection, it may bring serious hidden dangers of user information.



5. Volatile money market



Libra is the focus of Facebook in recent years. Once raised, the cryptocurrency Libra (now renamed Diem) has been questioned by many parties, including currency sovereignty, abuse of market dominance, potential systemic financial risks and other factors. After repeated setbacks at the government level, Libra failed to be listed and issued on time.



6. Suppress small and medium-sized enterprises



Although Facebook has repeatedly criticized Apple's "Apple tax" of 30% for application developers on social media, its own VR platform octlus is also drawing 30% from users. The founder of bigscreen, a VR film and television social platform, attacked this policy on Twitter: "we lose more than $1 for every $1 of revenue. We asked Facebook for help, but they just asked us to find a better business model. Facebook has formed a monopoly in VR video distribution."



7. Illegal collection of face data



In addition, in August 2020, Facebook was also accused of illegally stealing the facial information of nearly 100 million users through mobile camera. It is said that Facebook will collect users' reactions when watching advertisements and provide services for advertisers.