According to a survey conducted by Yahoo Finance, Facebook has been crowned the worst company of the year after a year of controversy and public backlash.
Microsoft is the best company of the year by Yahoo Finance every year. Yahoo Finance did a "worst company of the year" challenge this year, with Facebook taking the top spot. According to the survey, Facebook received 50% more votes for the spot than it did for the Chinese e-commerce platform.
There are many grievances towards Facebook, including but not limited to concerns over censorship, reports about the impact on mental health, and privacy. The survey results are not in the company's favor, but 30% of the participants responded positively to the idea that Facebook could redeem itself.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, said that the company changed its name to "Meta" to mark the start of a new direction. The goal of the new name is to be more in line with the goal of building a "Metaverse". The rebrand was seen as an attempt to distract from scrutiny, and according to some participants in the survey, it worked.
One person said that Facebook could redeem itself by acknowledging and apologizing for what it did and donating a "sizable amount" of its profits for a foundation to help reverse its harm. Some people saw the Meta rebrand as a cynical attempt to change the conversation, but others were excited by the potential of a new direction that could be interesting and different from the aging social media model.
Public concern over the privacy of its users has been a longstanding issue for Facebook. Changes in the iPadOS make it harder for companies to track users across other apps and websites, and Facebook fought with Apple over it.
The new change, App Tracking transparency, would hurt small businesses that rely on advertising to attract new customers, according to Facebook. Facebook's lackluster growth in the last quarter of the year was partly to blame on ATT, according to Mark Zuckerberg.
Tim Cook has not shied away from speaking out against Facebook. Cook implied at the start of the year that Facebook's business model leads to violence. A Meta spokesman wouldn't respond to a comment from Yahoo Finance.
