Over the past year, Facebook has implemented a number of changes while battling one PR crisis after another.

The social media platform has battled controversies that range from concerns over its role in the dissemination of 'fake news' to issues about questionable content on Facebook Live. 

As Facebook attempts to emerge from the thick of these scandals and others, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making a drastic move that appears to be an effort to refine public perception of a company struggling with its image. 

According to CNN, Zuckerberg is changing the company's name to Meta Platforms Inc., or simply 'Meta' for short. 

The 37-year-old CEO said he thought the name was appropriate based on the definition of the Greek word, 'Meta,' which means "beyond."

Interestingly, in a video posted by, 'The Recount,' Zuckerberg also discusses the virtual world concept of 'metaverse' and its goal to 'connect with people.' According to CNN, this relates to the company's growing efforts to combine virtual and augmented reality technologies in a new online realm. 

"Today we're seen as a social media company," Zuckerberg said. "But in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people. And the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started." 

Facebook demonstrated what this shift to focusing on the metaverse would look like by producing a series of concept videos that reveal what kind of tools Facebook will make available in the future. 

One idea is to allow users to send holographic images of themselves to events that their friends are attending in-person. For example, one concept video showed a user sending their holographic image to a music concert one of their friends was attending in real life. 

This technology would allow virtual meeting tables to include remote colleagues and provide gamers with more options when it comes to playing immersive games with friends.   

Zuckerberg said Thursday that with Meta as the company's new corporate name, Facebook has been demoted to represent just one of Meta's subsidiaries, alongside Instagram and WhatsApp, instead of acting as the overarching brand.