Facebook Appearance Will Be Improved, Content On Homepage Will Be Similar To TikTok

JAKARTA - Meta Platforms Inc., announced on Thursday, July 20 that they are improving the main feed in the Facebook app. This setup is to prioritize the "discovery" of new content, over posts from accounts that users follow. It's similar to TikTok.

Meta executives have voiced increasing urgency in recent months to improve their "Reels" product, similar to TikTok's short video format that has attracted many younger users.

"Home, the main Facebook newsfeed tab that users will see when they open the app, will begin showing more popular posts from accounts that users don't follow, including Reels and Stories," Meta said in a statement, cited from Reuters.

"Facebook will suggest posts to users with its machine learning ranking system and invest in artificial intelligence (AI) to serve recommended content," he added.

While a new separate tab called 'Feeds' (Feeds) will offer a reluctance to the old approach, it mostly displays posts from friends, pages and groups that users actively choose to follow.

"Feeds in that tab will be presented chronologically, with no personalized ratings," Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. Meta says this feed will not include suggested posts but will still have ads.

The world's largest social media company has carried out all its algorithmic recommendations in recent months as the threat from TikTok has grown. It's a stark change from 2018's plans to feature more posts from friends and family in the news feed.

His Instagram app announced testing of a more "awesome" TikTok-style viewing experience in May, while Zuckerberg told investors in April that Meta is making significant investments to support its "discovery engine" approach.

Earlier this month, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox told employees there were plans to fivefold the number of graphics processing units (GPUs) in its data centers by the end of the year to provide extra computing power for AI.