Ask HN: Has Facebook rehabilitated their name?

2 piratesAndSons 4 8/21/2025, 3:26:09 PM

I never see people calling them spyware operations anymore, so did the rebrand actually work?

I wonder why drug cartels don’t just change their names to get a similar advantage. If one of the Mexican drug cartels owned a social media company, would their name be rehabilitated the way Facebook’s was when it became Meta?

Comments (4)

MongooseStudios · 3h ago

I don't know what rock you live under, I've never seen more people aware of the game.

reify · 2h ago

I like

boatracecrook

boat race = cockney rhyming slang for face

crook = book

I have never been on boatracecrook, but if they changed the name to boatracecrook I might consider joining.

Look at the boatrace on that!!

bigyabai · 4h ago

Because nobody cared in the first place. The idea of Facebook causing outrage amongst its users was almost entirely fictional, and they knew it. They could be as awful as they wanted, and their userbase would still just want to share cat photos and reminisce on their daughter's graduation.

Most of their users would keep using Facebook if it was rebranded to "brain poison" and its logo changed to a skull-and-crossbones. It never rehabilitated, it was never sullied by the mainstream in the first place.

robthebrew · 3h ago

while this is true (long time abuser of the FB drug), these days I log in every other day (ideally) to check updates, but hardly ever my feed: it has been poisoned by suggestions and personalised ads. It is in a death spiral in terms of my membership.