Facebook‘s feed to undergo major changes

Meta, the world's biggest social media company, is prioritizing algorithmic recommendations

Meta Platforms announced that it was revamping the main feed on the Facebook app to focus on the "discovery" of new content, instead of the posts of accounts users follow. This is to style Facebook apps after its competitor TikTok. “Home," Facebook's main news feed tab that users see when they open the app, will start featuring popular posts from new accounts that users do not follow; this will include Reels as well as Stories. Facebook will suggest posts to users with the help of its machine learning ranking system and is also investing in artificial intelligence (AI) to provide recommended content.

Meta, the world's biggest social media company, is prioritizing algorithmic recommendations as the threat from TikTok is rising. This is a stark change from its 2018 plan to feature more posts from friends and family in the news feed. Meta's Instagram app announced tests of a more "immersive" TikTok-style viewing experience in May, while Zuckerberg told investors in April that Meta was making significant investments to support the "discovery engine" approach. Earlier this month, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox told employees there was a plan to increase fivefold the number of graphic processing units (GPUs) in its data centers by the year-end to provide extra computing power for AI.