Facebook rebrands 'News Feed', says employees are now called 'Meta Mates'

Meta's app logos
The company has long faced criticism for amplifying misinformation. Photo credit: Getty Images

Facebook has announced its rebranding the platform's 'News Feed' - but it's not as big a change as the last year's rebranding the company name to Meta.

The social media giant tweeted that, starting today, stories posted by your friends will go into something called 'Feed' instead.

Alex Heath, senior reporter at website The Verge, said the move could easily be seen as Facebook reinforcing its push to deprioritise political content.

The company has long faced criticism for amplifying misinformation, particularly around the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"The company said it's dropping 'news' from 'news feed' because 'news' led people to think there would be news stories but not necessarily posts by friends," Heath tweeted, describing an internal memo at the social media giants.

Responses on social media have largely been dismissive, with many pointing out that it just emphasises how 'news' no longer seems important to the company.

"An implicit admission that the monster they've created is out of their control and the sources their algorithm elevates can in no way be considered 'news'," one wrote.

"Good of Facebook to finally admit there's nothing resembling factual news on their platform," another tweeted.

The change was announced the same day that founder Mark Zuckerberg announced an update about his company's the values.

"I think it's important to be intentional about how we work and what values we emphasise," Zuckerberg wrote in a public Facebook post.

"We wrote our current company values back in 2007. They have been remarkably durable, but a lot has changed during this time. We have a global community and wide-reaching impact. And we're now a metaverse company, building the future of social connection. 

"Now is the right time to update our values and our cultural operating system." 

Those new values include 'Move Fast', 'Focus on Long-Term Impact', 'Build Awesome Things' and 'Live in the Future'.

Going forward, employees of the company will be known as 'Meta Mates', with Zuckerberg saying it's about "the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates".

"Values aren't what you write on a website but what we hold each other accountable for every day," he wrote.