There's no real name requirement for a Meta account, so it's not at all the same thing. You can tie it to a throwaway email and use a fake name.
Thankfully it was not used for anything other than chatting with people in certain communities and I have other Facebook accounts that are also pseudonyms, but Facebook can and will sometimes require verification of an account.
That’s not the case for Meta accounts which are a completely separate thing. I agree it’s confusing.