this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
1086 points (99.1% liked)

Microblog Memes

10164 readers
2921 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ReadyUser31@lemmy.world
aeronmelon@lemmy.world
needanke@feddit.org
1086
metastasis (quokk.au)
submitted 1 day ago by Deceptichum@quokk.au to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
173 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BananaChips@lemmy.zip 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My conspiracy theory is that it was wildly successful, because the point wasn't creating whatever VR space they claimed wanted to happen; it was to cover up the story of the Facebook papers. The timing lines up (both in October 2021 within a day or two). The additional patents acquired in the process are just a nice little bonus.

Investors ate up the idea from someone who has a history of wildly successful growth. And we all know, it would have been outcry from investors that caused any real change (in America at least) about Facebook's business practices.

[–] hacktheegg@programming.dev 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can you pls elaborate on what Facebook Papers is? I am aware of the failure that is Facebooks Metaverse, but not whatever their 'Papers' thing is

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Facebook_leak

In 2021, an internal document leak from the company then known as Facebook (now Meta Platforms, or Meta) showed it was aware of harmful societal effects from its platforms, yet persisted in prioritizing profit over addressing these harms. The leak, released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, resulted in reporting from The Wall Street Journal in September, as The Facebook Files series, as well as the Facebook Papers, by a consortium of news outlets the next month.

Primarily, the reports revealed that, based on internally-commissioned studies, the company was fully aware of negative impacts on teenage users of Instagram, and the contribution of Facebook activity to violence in developing countries. Other takeaways of the leak include the impact of the company's platforms on spreading false information, and Facebook's policy of promoting inflammatory posts. Furthermore, Facebook was fully aware that harmful content was being pushed through Facebook algorithms reaching young users. The types of content included posts promoting anorexia nervosa and self-harm photos.

In October 2021, Whistleblower Aid filed eight anonymous whistleblower complaints with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on behalf of Haugen alleging securities fraud by the company, after Haugen leaked the company documents the previous month.[1][2][3] After publicly revealing her identity on 60 Minutes,[4][5] Haugen testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security about the content of the leaked documents and the complaints.[6] After the company renamed itself as Meta Platforms,[7] Whistleblower Aid filed two additional securities fraud complaints with the SEC against the company on behalf of Haugen in February 2022.[8]

In response to the media fallout, Facebook executives went on press tours to express Facebook's position amidst the frenzy.[9] Facebook also did internal damage control with employees through in person sessions and memos.[10] They went on to do a rebranding and changed their logo as well as their name to Meta.[11]

[–] Virtvirt588@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Speaking of it, there where talks about Facebook harming teenagers and young adults in terms of anorexia and selfharm. Its just that those talks quickly vanished as if they where never there - its like they where purposefully covered up by a different story.