Social media customers in Israel are mocking Fb’s firm identify change to Meta, because it sounds just like the Hebrew phrase for “useless.”
Many Twitter customers scoffed on the social media firm’s rebrand — revealed by founder Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week — utilizing the hashtag #FacebookDead. “Any person didn’t do their #branding analysis,” one post read.
Dr Nirit Weiss-Blatt, writer of The Techlash and Tech Disaster Communication, tweeted: “In Hebrew, *Meta* means *Lifeless* The Jewish group will ridicule this identify for years to return.”
“Grave error?? Fb’s new identify Meta means useless in Hebrew. Hilarious. #FacebookDead” one other consumer tweeted.
Zuckerberg’s efforts to revamp Fb come as the corporate faces what might be its most potent scandal because it launched in 2004.
The social media large is beneath the highlight following the publication this week of “The Fb Papers,” a sequence of inside paperwork obtained by 17 information organizations, together with CNN, that underpin whistleblower Frances Haugen’s claims the corporate is riddled with institutional shortcomings.
The paperwork reveal how Fb has propelled misinformation, struggled to get rid of human trafficking-related content material on the location, and tried to extend its teenage viewers, regardless of inside analysis suggesting that its platforms, particularly Instagram, can have an antagonistic impact on their psychological well being.
Fb is not the primary firm to be ridiculed after its branding did not translate overseas.
In 2019, Kim Kardashian West was accused of cultural appropriation after debuting her shapewear model, which she initially named Kimono. Kardashian even appeared to have trademarked the phrase “kimono,” a call that the mayor of Kyoto, Daisaku Kadokawa, criticized in an open letter on Fb.
“We expect that the names for ‘Kimono’ are the asset shared with all humanity who love Kimono and its tradition subsequently they shouldn’t be monopolized,” Kadokawa wrote.
Kardashian modified the identify of her model to Skims later that 12 months.
In 2017, McDonald’s identify change in China raised eyebrows. Prospects have been left confused when the corporate swapped Maidanglao, a Chinese language iteration of the English identify, to Jingongmen, which loosely interprets to “Golden Arches.” One buyer stated it “seems like a furnishings retailer.”
And when the Nissan Moco was launched within the early 2000s, Spanish-speaking clients might have regarded twice, because the phrase “moco” interprets to “bogey.” For sure, the identify was solely utilized in Japan.
