Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has scoffed at the “metaverse,” a concept Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing as the future of both Facebook and the Internet in general.
The “metaverse” refers to a future version of the internet where, instead of accessing the web via laptops and phones, people use virtual reality and augmented reality headsets to enter a virtual space.
Dorsey indicated late on Tuesday that he thought the idea was dystopian.
One Twitter user tweeted about Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambitions, mentioning that the term was first coined by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash.” The user said: “It originally described a virtual world owned by corporations where end users were treated as citizens in a dystopian corporate dictatorship.”
The user asked: “What if Neal was right?”
Dorsey responded to the tweet: “NARRATOR It was him.”
Zuckerberg told The Verge in July that he wanted Facebook to eventually become a “metaverse company.”
Facebook announced Monday that it intended to hire 10,000 people in Europe over the next five years to help build the metaverse.
The Verge reported on Tuesday that Facebook was considering a rebrand, changing its name to focus more on its metaverse ambitions.
