Disha Mitra
Facebook’s new venture Metaverse suffers a major setback.
Source: trendeepro
Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is clearly a structure far beyond the universe of science fiction that we can imagine. It directly relates to Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel “Snow Crash” where he creates a realm where human avatars can essentially interact with one another. This is what was described as ‘metaverse.’ Currently, it is Meta CEO Zuckerberg’s ambitious project which he hopes to fully introduce to the world in a few years.
The importance of this project was highlighted when Facebook took the crucial step to change its name to Meta in October. The metaverse is essentially a network comprising 3D virtual worlds emphasising on social connections. However, the universe has visibly run into certain important hindrances on the way to what Zuckergerg described as “the next frontier.” One of its massive blows when a former product manager, Frances Haugen accused the company of focussing more on profits rather than on the effect of hate speech.
Clearly, this proved to be rather expensive for both Meta and Zuckerberg himself, who lost $29.7 billion from his own net worth. On the other hand, the social media giant nearly dropped $237 billion in market capitalisation a day after the results came out.
“Meta stock suffered the largest decline in stock market history when it reported negative earnings growth last quarter, driven by this $10 billion investment.” – Natasha Lamb
Moreover, the company stated that its division of Reality Labs lost $10.2 billion in 2021, over a double of what operating losses recorded the previous year. In 2020, they recorded $4.62 billion and $4.5 billion in 2019.
Additionally, the company also faced a blow from the US Security ad Exchange Commission (SEC). Not long ago, they ruled that Meta should provide their investors with opportunity to consider and vote on a shareholder proposal. The proposal must question the “social license” to function “an emerging technology” like this one. They should get the chance to vote on such a proposal without entirely understanding the possible risks and negative effects.
The managing partner of Arjuna Capital, Natasha Lamb was of the one the parties who filed this proposal in December. She stated the agency’s decision is a ‘victory’ for investors that ‘question Zuckerberg’s leadership.’ She went on to mention how this ruling cleared the path for investors to better determine the possible psychological and human rights risks of the network. Moreover, weigh in on if the company should be pumping $20 billion each year into an upcoming technology. Specifically, she said, when they so evidently failing to control the risks on their main platforms.