How Facebook is using its metaverse push to rehabilitate its reputation with policymakers and reposition itself to shape regulation of future technologies
With a buzzy push for next-wave virtual reality hardware, the tech giant is trying to outrun its mounting woes.
Washington Post
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook's metaverse pitch did not start as a product announcement but as a strategic reset: days after this report, it defined the metaverse as the "next computing platform" and committed $50M over two years to external programs and research framed around building it "responsibly." That framing is the point — a forward-looking platform narrative aimed squarely at the policymakers weighing the company's present.
The strategy has a known weakness: per related coverage, Meta is playing catch-up against Roblox, Steam VR, and VRChat, which already run metaverse-like experiences, while analysts note the pivot is also designed to address an aging userbase, dependence on Google and Apple's app stores, and mounting regulatory risk.
First-order effects
The $50M research commitment hands regulators and academics funded seats at the table early, letting Facebook recast itself from subject of oversight into co-architect of rules for a technology that does not yet have any.
Repositioning toward VR hardware and immersive platforms shifts the company's public identity in Washington from social-media harm disputes toward a "next computing platform" agenda that policymakers have less existing case history on.
Second-order effects
Competitors already running live metaverse-like worlds — Roblox, Steam VR, VRChat — face a rival with far greater resources lobbying to define the category's norms, potentially locking its own architecture into whatever standards emerge.
If the "responsibly built" framing lands, regulators' attention splits between auditing Facebook's current platforms and pre-drafting rules for the metaverse, diluting pressure on the core business the pivot was meant to escape.
Third-order effects
If the playbook works, incumbent platforms will treat emerging technologies as legitimacy vehicles — funding external research and defining terminology before products mature, so governance gets shaped by the companies being regulated.
It points toward a structural split in platform regulation: legacy social networks policed for past harms while successor platforms negotiate their rulebooks in advance, with the incumbents best positioned to straddle both.
The trend: Major platforms are using investments in next computing paradigms to convert regulatory liability into a seat at the table where future rules get written.
“Metaverse, medical devices, & Lean In” We have an exclusive story going inside FB's political strategy. More than just a Zuck passion project, metaverse is an attempt to create rules for the next Internet FB could dominate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @Cat_Zakrzewski @Ni…
“Years of controversy over its role in spreading misinformation, abusing privacy, crushing competition & undermining democracy had left the Facebook brand in shambles. The company needed a new identity. Thus began Facebook's push for the ‘metaverse’...” https://www.washingtonpost…
No doubt that the company will learn from its integrity stumbles and take a more cautious and thoughtful approach to the “metaverse”, but for the outcome to be any different this time around will require FB to also rewire its whole culture. Big task. https://twitter.com/...
Yes, because if you can't us with your information, and you can't trust us with your relationships, surely you'll trust this piece of hardware we want you to STRAP TO YOUR FACE. https://twitter.com/...
Yeah, an Oculus Rift world made by the people who brought you disinformation, teen toxicity tools and more should make it all better: How Facebook's ‘metaverse’ became a political strategy in Washington https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
But also, when comms & policy folks at big tech cos sit down for performance reviews, they're graded on how many big campaigns/events they led, so it's very common for these types of “pop-ups” to be proposed as the solution to every brand perception problem.
Facebook rebranding w/an idea popularized by a book whose core conceit is that some ideas are so viral they are also a drug and a religion, and the ultra rich are leveraging viral ideas in order to manipulate people into compliance to destroy America is just a LITTLE ON THE NOSE!
How Facebook's ‘metaverse’ became a political strategy in Washington https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... —Does Facebook really think that policymakers are so stupid that they would go fetch this bone?
Nothing Facebook says is sincere. Nothing. They're just strip-mining the internet. They see your attention as a raw material they, and they alone, get to extract and monetize. They're no better than Big Oil and probably more destructive.
Only Facebook would be like ‘hey our branding is bad what if we rebrand using a term popularized by cyberpunk authors describing a dystopian hellscape created by technology’ https://twitter.com/...
I said this from the beginning: Facebook is babbling about “metaverse” simply because they've ruined the words “community” and “connection” already. They just moved on to another word, but they're all the same boxes they fill with garbage.
It's very telling that the experienced political strategists at tech cos believe this kind of strategy works on regulators & lawmakers...because it does. There's no moral high ground in DC. https://twitter.com/...
.@Facebook's political strategy is exactly a page out of @googlepubpolicy's 2012 playbook when @Google attempted to woo/wow lawmakers with free rides in their driverless cars: https://www.wsj.com/... (from @amir) (Full disclosure: I took a ride - wasn't very wow'd) https://twitte…
Nakedly obvious. And working to an extent. When exec Andrew Bosworth was made CTO Wed, CNBC mentioned “metaverse” but not the troubling WSJ Facebook Files or any of Boz's (as @JBoorstin called him) past controversies. They're a toxic mess. Metaverse is their attempt to get out. h…
Deny. Deflect. Delay. FB's crisis management plan never changes. Latest deflection is dystopian “metaverse,” which FB will use to distract journalists and policy makers from catastrophic harm FB has done to democracy, public health, privacy, & competition. https://www.washingtonp…