Facebook returns to friends and family, making it easier to see what your cousin or high school boyfriend is posting: bad news for influencers?
As Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg eyes a user experience akin to “back in the day”, a major change has been made to Facebook.
Facebook is returning to its roots by introducing a revamped “Friends” tab, the social-media platform’s owner, Meta, revealed this week.
How will the new Facebook “Friends” tab work?
Meta says the “Friends” tab will now offer users a content feed that only displays updates shared by their Facebook contacts, with no algorithmically recommended content posted by non-contacts.
“Formerly a place to view friend requests and People You May Know, the Friends tab will now show your friends’ stories, reels, posts, birthdays and friend requests,” Meta said in a blog post on Thursday.
Where is the “Friends” tab being rolled out?
As things stand, the new “Friends” tab is only being introduced in the United States and Canada, Meta added.
The tech giant, which also owns online platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, did not offer details on its plans for implementing the feature in other countries.
“Magic of friends has fallen away”
Launched by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, Facebook was initially a platform on which users “only saw friends’ status updates”, Zuckerberg noted in a post announcing the new “Friends” tab.
Having in 2012 added adverts to Facebook users’ content feed, Meta then announced in 2022 that it would begin displaying posts by non-“friends”.
In this week’s blog post, Meta said: “Connecting with friends has been a part of Facebook since it launched.
“Over the years, Facebook evolved to meet changing needs and created best-in-class experiences across Groups, Video, Marketplace and more, but the magic of friends has fallen away.”
More “OG” Facebook changes planned
Meta says its revamping of the “Friends” tab is just one of “several ‘OG’ Facebook experiences” that will be rolled out in 2025, as Zuckerberg pledges to make the social-media site more like it was “back in the day”.
In January, the 40-year-old told a fourth-quarter Meta earnings call that this year’s planned changes for the platform “will kind of get back to how Facebook was originally used”.
A social-media “sharp departure”
Writing in the New York Times, the journalist Mike Isaac, who specializes in reporting on Meta, points out that Facebook’s introduction of a contacts-only feed represents a “sharp departure” from the direction in which social media has moved in recent years.
“The rise of apps like TikTok habituated users to seeing posts in their feeds from influencers and content creators, who were often people they had never met. Other companies followed suit,” Isaac says.
“Meta’s apps, which also include Instagram, began leaning more heavily on recommended content to keep people engaged for longer periods.”
In an interview with Isaac, the Facebook app chief Tom Alison said: “This idea of having a central place of what’s going on with your friends, that was like the magic of the early days of social media.
“We’re making sure that there’s still a place for this stuff on Facebook. It is something that shouldn’t get lost in the modern social media mix.”
How can I access the “Friends” tab?
In the Facebook app, the “Friends” tab is located in the navigation bar in your home feed. You can also access the tab in the app’s bookmarks section.
You can pin the “Friends” tab by choosing “Settings & Privacy”, then going to “Settings” and selecting “Tab bar”.
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