According to a memo leaked to the internet, Facebook employees were given a new directive by the company to make the app’s news feed more similar to the TikTok-owned Chinese firm.
According to The Verge, Facebook employees were given a new directive to make the app more TikTok-like according to a leaked memo. A memo from late April shows Facebook executive Tom Alison describing the plans for the future.
Facebook’s main newsfeed will now recommend posts, regardless of origin. Instead of prioritizing posts from accounts that people follow, it will not prioritize posts. The company plans to reunite its Messenger and Facebook apps, many years after they were separated. This will allow it to imitate TikTok’s messaging platform.
Reels, Facebook’s TikTok-clone feature that is included in Instagram, has been given a greater emphasis. These changes demonstrate how Facebook is trying to challenge TikTok for social media supremacy. Facebook has copied Snapchat features, and this is a trend that continues to grow as the app becomes more popular.
According to reports, investors are beginning to worry that Meta’s inability to navigate the challenges it faces in its ad industry will be a problem moving forward. If Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, wants his Metaverse vision to come true, he must keep up with the competition.
Alison stated to employees, in a comment under his April memo, “The risk is that we dismiss it as not valuable to people as an example of social communication and connection. And we fail to develop.”
Facebook’s main tab will now include Stories and Reels, and below that posts will be recommended by the app discovery engine from Instagram and Facebook. The app will be more video-heavy than text and have clear prompts for friends to send messages. Facebook plans to place a Messenger inbox at top right of app.
