Name changes don’t phase us. Remember when the government not so long ago changed our windy city, Port Elizabeth’s name to Gqeberha? And when Google became Alphabet? Do we even think of or ever use these names? Well, the next change may be more difficult for its billions of users. The beleaguered Facebook is set to make an announcement next week or maybe even sooner. The social media giant says it’s much more than social media and reportedly wants the new name to reflect its focus on building the metaverse – a virtual world that is likely to connect work, play, business meetings, trade and so on. Or maybe the disastrous six hour outage on 4 October has woken emperor Mark Zuckerberg up to finding himself without clothes?
Facebook has been under fire since whistleblower Frances Haugen shared thousands of company documents detailing the social media platform’s struggle with moderating content with regulators and the Wall Street Journal. And the knocks keep coming.
Another Facebook whistleblower, Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist for the company, testified before a committee of lawmakers in the British parliament this week that the social media site is allowing authoritarian governments to manipulate political discourse. And yesterday, just hours after it launched Novi, a new digital wallet, Senate Democrats requested the social media platform to shelve it alongside its cryptocurrency project Diem as the company “cannot be trusted to manage a payment system or digital currency when its existing ability to manage risks and keep consumers safe has proven wholly insufficient”.
Not sure if a rebrand is the answer to all Facebook’s ills.
On a lighter note, the 95-year-old Queen Elizabeth II has snubbed the “Oldie of the Year” award as she believes “you are as old as you feel” and thinks she does not meet the “relevant criteria”. Now there’s a thought!
In the markets, the rand, along with most emerging market currencies, continues to track stronger. “A positive risk sentiment pervades markets at the moment, pushing equity and commodity prices higher while the dollar continues to retreat from its highs,” comments TreasuryONE. At last count the local unit was trading at R14.54/$.
Here’s a roundup of the world’s top and most interesting headlines:
SA Business
Eskom heads to court over pricing – BusinessTech
Family who exited De Beers for $5 billion seeks out Asia’s rich – Bloomberg
Cape Town launches first floating solar pilot project as part of 2030 carbon neutral plan – News24
Global Business
Credit Suisse to pay at least R6 billion in Mozambique scandal – Fin24
142m households watched Squid Game, Netflix says as it adds 4.4m subscribers – The Guardian
Spec showdown: Google’s new Pixel 6 vs. Samsung, Apple, and more – The Verge
Markets
Oil drops on China intervention to ease coal crunch – Reuters
Bitcoin FOMO fuels ETF frenzy – Bloomberg
Gold up as dollar weakens, US bond yields rise – Investing.com
Opinion/In-depth
‘You can’t be in power forever’: Ace Magashule weighs up ANC prospects – Daily Maverick
First Bitcoin-linked ETF has launched on Wall Street. What is it and is the crypto world ready? – Euronews
Big pharma rules, okay? No, it’s not okay – Daily Maverick
Video
Where’s my stuff? Global supply chain crisis explained – Al Jazeera
Consumers keep $2.7 trillion in crisis savings for a rainy day – Bloomberg
Breast cancer products bring in big money — but to whom? – Newsy
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