Zuckerberg Should Focus on the Midterms, Not the Metaverse – The Washington Post

You have to hand it to Mark Zuckerberg. In the face of criticism about the radical strategic shift he has chosen for Facebook, he is stubbornly focused on turning it into a metaverse company. Other tech billionaires may lash out at dissent, but Zuckerberg remains stoic, tuning out the noise to give earnest interviews and presentations about his virtual-reality vision.But while he can get away with ignoring the criticism, the CEO of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. should reassess his priorities over the coming months as the US approaches potentially tumultuous midterm elections. He needs to turn his attention back to Facebook, or risk letting misleading videos about election fraud proliferate, potentially disrupting the democratic process yet again. Zuckerberg could start by doing what thousands of managers before him have done, and reconsider his tasks. The metaverse project is still in its infancy: While Facebook has about 3 billion active users, Horizon Worlds, the VR platform that serves as the foundation of metaverse experience, has just 200,000, according to internal documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal.Zuckerberg has been upfront in saying that Meta’s metaverse won’t be fully realized for five years or more. All the more reason, then, that his passion project can afford to lose his attention for a few…
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