Social media giant Facebook is apparently looking at changing its name to reflect its metaverse future.

That's according to The Verge, this new branding could be unveiled at the company's upcoming Connect even on October 28th. Apparently this fresh name is set to reflect the firm's intention to be used for more than social media, with the Facebook brand becoming one of the company's verticals, like WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus are right now.

For some time now, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been talking up the metaverse – broadly speaking, an online world – as the next big step that it is going to be taking, using its experience in both virtual reality and social media. The firm is also hiring 10,000 people in Europe to work on said metaverse.

It could also serve to distance Facebook from the myriad controversies that the company has faced in recent years, not least the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the more recent damning leaks that show the social media giant shutting down research that show's the platform's harm.