Facebook To Rename WhatsApp And Instagram in Rebranding Move

Facebook wants to rebrand WhatsApp and Instagram to names that will clearly show the ownership of the two apps.

Spokesperson Bertie Thomson confirmed that Facebook, which is the parent company of WhatsApp and Instagram intends to change the names of the apps to ‘WhatsApp from Facebook’ and ‘Instagram from Facebook’.

“We want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook,” Thomson said.

He explained that the new name will show up in App stores, for people who will be downloading the apps but will remain the same on the phone’s or tablet’s home screen.

The multinational technology company had already made similar changes with its virtual reality focused sub-division, Oculus.

“We had begun testing the Instagram and WhatsApp rebranding during the spring, and it is now being rolled out more widely,” he said.

According to sources, these changes will be made due to the recent anti-trust scrutiny by the US Federal Trade Commission, on Facebook’s acquisition of the two apps.

In the past two years, Facebook has had constant privacy scandals which WhatsApp and Instagram had been shielded from.

Other sources say that the rebranding may have been caused by co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s frustrations that the social media giant is not receiving credit for the growth of the two apps it acquired.

The co-founders of Instagram and WhatsApp successively left the Silicon Valley tech giant over the past few years, with various reports citing tension between them and Mark Zuckerberg.

Instagram and WhatsApp are now being tied intimately into Facebook, with an ambitious plan to allow users to send messages between the various apps and Messenger. However, this may not have any significant change in any of the three apps. Facebook is already a household name while WhatsApp and Instagram are also popular among users.

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