Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg unveiled renewed company values on Tuesday, urging workers to be “metamates” who treat each other with respect and look to the future.
Zuckerberg shared his note to employees on his Facebook page, the renewed creed coming shortly after the internet giant was renamed Meta in October.
“As we build the next chapter of our company as Meta, we’ve just updated the values that guide our work,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Facebook last restated its stated values in 2007, according to the company’s co-founder and boss.
An ethic of “move fast and break things” from the early days of Facebook has evolved to simply “move fast” as a team to deliver innovations.
Meta’s new credo also calls for being direct but respectful of colleagues, collaborating as “Metamates”.
“Meta, Metamates, Me is about being good stewards of our company and mission,” wrote Zuckerberg.
“It’s about taking care of our company and each other.”
The stated values also require a focus on the long term and building “amazing things”.
The notion of Zuckerberg urging employees to be Metamates in a morale-building rant was promptly derided on Twitter.
Some joked that the word sounded more suited to a bad dating app, or even to sailors on a ship in troubled waters.
“Metamates report to Metatorium for a Metameeting,” read one of the many jokes fired on Twitter.
Others portrayed it as part of an effort to divert attention from the problems at Facebook.
Critics derided the Facebook rebrand as an attempt to distract from an avalanche of damaging revelations from whistleblower Frances Haugen.
The “Facebook Papers” showed that company executives were aware of the harm potential of their websites on a number of fronts, including the uncontrolled spread of hate speech in developing countries, as well as the impact of Instagram on teen mental health.
“For those of us living in the present, @Meta Facebook is not ‘pleasing us to death,'” Haugen said in a tweet on Tuesday.
“Facebook must recognize the damage they are doing today, not turn to the @Meta-verse and never look back.”