UPDATED 22:54 EDT / JULY 21 2022

APPS

Facebook undergoes revamp and comes out looking like TikTok

Meta Platforms Inc. seems to have embraced the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” adage as it announced today that people are about to see something new when they use the Facebook app – something like they see when they open their TikTok app.

The revamped Facebook app will feature a Home tab that, like TikTok, will show a series of photos and videos, and posts from their friends and family, but the tab will also feature a “Suggested for You” option that will allow users to click on content unrelated to their own page, thereby expanding the world of the average Facebook user.

This comes as no surprise since a leaked memo written by company executives surfaced earlier this month. That missive described how the future of the app will heavily feature what it called a “Discovery Engine.” This looks almost exactly like TikTok’s “For You” feature.

For a long time, Meta had embraced another adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But over the last few years, Facebook has witnessed the rapid rise of TikTok and seen how fickle younger users have so easily been swayed toward different types of social media. As for what content people are shown, that will all depend on what Meta’s algorithm thinks about you.

The change will also come with a new Feed tab. Users will still be able to see regular posts from friends, but now they’ll have the opportunity to see their posts in chronological order. It will also be easier now to go through certain topics in Groups or Pages, rather than have to scroll through the News Feed and perhaps come across something they’re interested in.

“One of the most requested features for Facebook is to make sure people don’t miss friends’ posts,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg explained on his Facebook page. “So today we’re launching a Feeds tab where you can see posts from your friends, groups, Pages, and more separately in chronological order. The app will still open to a personalized feed on the Home tab, where our discovery engine will recommend the content we think you’ll care most about. But the Feeds tab will give you a way to customize and control your experience further.”

Every Facebook user all over the globe will see the update sometime over the next week.

Photo: Dima Solomin/Unsplash

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