Internal memo: Meta plans to make Facebook more like TikTok, including bringing Messenger back into the app and recommending posts from “unconnected” sources
a big departure from how it currently works. That and more changes here: https://www.theverge.com/... Sameer Singh / @sameer_singh17 : Leaving even more room for new startups to re-build the social graph (via new interactions). Innovator's dilemma playing out. https://twitter.com/... Jeff Nolan / @jeffnolan : would have loved to be in the meetings where demographics and competitive strategy were discussed https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @sub8u : Better hope that your friend is an influencer, so you see their life update on your feed. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/... Leigh Stein / @rhymeswithbee : This sentence is very funny without context: “Leaked internal documents also show that Facebook's user base is steadily aging, with employees uncertain about how to course-correct the trend.” https://www.theverge.com/... @mrinaldesai : Dancing to someone's tune byte by byte? https://twitter.com/... Chris Bail / @chris_bail : Your daily reminder that no social media platform is invincible and there is still a huge opportunity for new players to define the future of the field. https://twitter.com/... @hypervisible : What Facebook wants is to deliver more extremist content to people, so the algo change is just a convenient technical excuse. Alex Rainert / @arainert : This isn't a strategy. It reads like the frantic thrashing in the ER trying to save a patient on the table. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... @bennysoliven : Plz Instagram I don't wanna see ppls stories over and over again Rob Flaherty / @rob_flaherty : All seems sort of inevitable in the short term that social is going to just start to look like TikTok, but two observations: 1. Chasing stories didn't seem to work for big blue 2. TikTok has started to do stuff oriented around followers (like reposts) so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://twitter.com/... @richlightshed : “[Meta] executives hope that a similar treatment to Facebook will reverse the app's stagnant growth and potentially lure back young people.” $META 🤣🤣🤣 @alexeheath https://twitter.com/... Dan Pfeiffer / @danpfeiffer : This seems likely to have some pretty bad unintended (or maybe intended) effects. https://twitter.com/... Ashley Gold / @ashleyrgold : classic @alexeheath to drop the story the minute i'm cursing at my instagram feed for serving up too many batshit reels from people I don't follow https://twitter.com/... @ethangach : What if the site where I share baby pictures with friends and family was more like influencer roulette https://twitter.com/... Patrick Hedger / @pathedger18 : Things unstoppable monopolies do... or something... https://www.theverge.com/... @benjaminrivers : I stopped using FB years ago. I use IG for art stuff, but each algorithm change/panic move have made it demonstrably less useful — both as a creator and as a “consumer.” I won't miss Meta when it dies. https://twitter.com/... @adequate_scott : Having a hard time seeing how social media is meaningfully different from TV if the end state of every platform is a feed dominated by the same broadly-popular slop as your neighbor's. https://twitter.com/... Jesse Lehrich / @jesselehrich : this flies in the face of everything FB has said for years. here's Zuck's 2018 post on FB prioritizing “meaningful social interactions” over engaging video content cuz the research shows the former is good for our wellbeing & the latter is not: https://www.facebook.com/... https://twitter.com/... Nick Statt / @nickstatt : This sounds like the opposite of what will make me open Facebook again https://twitter.com/... @martinsfp : 🤔😬 https://t.co/xavq74xKEe @btx91 : this sounds like Hell https://twitter.com/... Ben Lamb / @bennyfactor : I cannot imagine a facebook newsfeed that I desire less than one that just shows me random shit I never asked for https://twitter.com/... Steve Kovach / @stevekovach : .@alexeheath on how the Facebook app is about to morph into a TikTok clone. (Instagram is mostly already there.) https://www.theverge.com/... Richard Lawler / @rjcc : What the other platforms don't get about TikTok is that it's not so much about what the algorithm shows you as much as the way it drives people to make content that you might want to see (that's not always a good thing, but I digress) https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta’s plan moves Facebook away from a feed organized chiefly around friends and family toward a recommendation-led product. It also pairs feed discovery with messaging inside the same app, while Meta was separately shifting resources away from News and Bulletin toward creators.
The later Facebook feed revamp featuring more posts outside users’ networks shows this memo as an early marker of a broader product reset rather than an isolated interface change. The strategic trade-off is that Facebook seeks TikTok-style discovery while taking on more responsibility for the quality of material it recommends.
First-order effects
- Under the plan, Facebook users would receive posts from accounts they do not follow, and Messenger would return to the core Facebook app rather than remain separate.
- Meta’s Facebook teams would prioritize recommendation and retention mechanics over a feed defined primarily by a user’s existing social graph.
Second-order effects
- Creators and publishers gain a new route to Facebook audiences without first building follower networks, intensifying competition for algorithmic distribution as Meta emphasizes the creator economy.
- Facebook’s recommendation systems face a higher content-quality burden; a prior test of a bland profile found low-quality clickbait in Facebook’s algorithmic recommendations.
Third-order effects
- If Meta sustains the shift, the social graph becomes less of Facebook’s organizing asset than its ability to infer interests and rank an expanding supply of content.
- The model also makes trust and recommendation governance central product constraints, especially as algorithmic reach extends beyond chosen connections.
The trend: Large social platforms are reorienting from follower-graph feeds toward algorithmic discovery, with messaging and creator distribution folded into the same engagement loop.