Facebook wants to 'return to its roots'

A news feed for friends on Facebook. Photo: Meta .

Meta has just announced the addition of a separate news feed called Friends on the Facebook app, which only shows posts from friends and relatives.

Users access the Friends tab from the bottom navigation bar. Posts in the feed are scrollable, focusing on photos, videos, text, stories, birthday notifications, and friend requests.

The feature is being tested for Facebook users in the US and Canada. According to Meta, this is a way to return to Facebook's original mission, which is to connect people through social networking experiences.

“It's the idea of ​​a place where your friends' activities converge, like the 'magic' of the early days of social media...

“We’re making sure that these elements are still there on Facebook. They shouldn’t be lost in today’s social media landscape,” Tom Alison, Facebook’s vice president of communications, told the New York Times .

The news feed from friends is one of the biggest changes to how Facebook has evolved over the past decade. The popularity of platforms like TikTok has made users accustomed to receiving updates from people they don’t know, like influencers and content creators.

Not only Facebook, other Meta applications like Instagram, also rely more on recommended content to "retain" users longer.

Not everyone is on board with this trend. When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, the site was designed to connect college students. After it became popular, Facebook helped users stay up to date with friends and family.

In 2022, many people protested when Zuckerberg announced that he would be inserting content from strangers into his Facebook news feed. After receiving criticism, Meta reduced the frequency of displaying content from strangers in the news feed.

Of course, Meta still uses algorithmic content. In recent years, Facebook and Instagram's news feeds have been dominated by content from creators, businesses, and brands. The company says that recommended content like Reels and videos keeps users on the app longer.

Content in the Friends section includes posts from friends, birthday notifications, and friend requests. Photo: Meta .

In October 2024, Facebook rolled out a series of changes aimed at Gen Z, focusing on connecting users with communities, groups, and videos. In January of this year, Zuckerberg said that “getting back to OG Facebook” was one of his main goals for 2025.

“Over the years, Facebook has evolved to meet changing needs, delivering the best experiences in Groups, Video, Marketplace... but the magic of friends is gone,” Facebook admitted.

Meta will still focus on algorithmically-recommended content, though. “For now, the company doesn’t expect the Friends tab to be more popular than the Home feed with its suggested content,” the New York Times said.

In the future, Meta plans to launch a series of new features to make Facebook “still as social” as it used to be.

“That's still at the core of Facebook,” Alison stressed.

Source: https://znews.vn/facebook-muon-tro-ve-ban-nga-post1541421.html