Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives have been making it clear for some time that competing with TikTok is their top priority. Now we have additional details on how they plan to completely overhaul the Facebook app to achieve that.
The social network is working on a major redesign of Facebook’s main feed, heavily emphasizing featured content from Pages, creators and people you don’t yet follow, according to a Facebook executive memo published by The Verge.
The memo, from Tom Alison, who runs the Facebook app at Meta, states that the goal is to turn Facebook into a “Discovery Engine” that relies heavily on recommendations, similar to the “For You” feed. from TikTok. Recommendations would primarily come from “disconnected” content, including roles, and users would see fewer posts from friends and family in their feeds. The plan would also bring Messenger’s inboxes back to the Facebook app in an effort to encourage users to share more content from the said “Discovery Engine.”
It’s not clear how long it will take Meta to implement these changes, some of which mirror changes already happening on Instagram. But it’s not the first time Meta executives have hinted at major changes to the Facebook app, or even the first time we’ve heard of an impending social networking pivot to “Discovery Engine.” Zuckerberg said in April the company was in the midst of a “major shift” that would change feed dynamics to emphasize AI-driven recommendations over users’ social charts.
Still, Alison’s memo makes it clear how important the new priorities are to the company, which is desperately trying to catch up with TikTok.
But the shift to more recommendations can also be problematic for the company. The company’s current recommendation algorithms are accused of exploiting divisiveness and promoting misinformation. Although Alison told The Verge there would be stricter rules for featured content, the company often struggles to enforce its own rules. And, most notably, in his memo, Alison states that the company is changing the way it sees its commitment to reduce “negative experiences.”
“‘Reducing negative experiences’ has been removed as a product priority because it better aligns with the product culture we’re trying to build through our approach of ‘trustworthy’, ‘people-oriented’ and ‘united,'” Alison wrote. † “Our focus is to do this holistically across all of our products as a permanent part of our culture, rather than a short-term priority.”
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