Facebook Plans ‘Discovery Engine’ Feed Change to Compete With TikTok ⇥ theverge.com

Alex Heath, the Verge:

In an internal memo from late April obtained by The Verge, the Meta executive in charge of Facebook, Tom Alison, spelled out the plan: rather than prioritize posts from accounts people follow, Facebook’s main feed will, like TikTok, start heavily recommending posts regardless of where they come from. And years after Messenger and Facebook split up as separate apps, the two will be brought back together, mimicking TikTok’s messaging functionality.

Combined with an increasing emphasis on Reels, the planned changes show how forcibly Meta is responding to the rise of TikTok, which has quickly become a legitimate challenger to its dominance in social media. While Instagram has already morphed to look more like TikTok with its focus on Reels, executives hope that a similar treatment to Facebook will reverse the app’s stagnant growth and potentially lure back young people.

Between now and theoretically mainstreaming the metaverse concept, it is interesting to see Meta’s flagship product flail around as it attempts to establish an identity beyond how your parents complain about kids these days. Regardless of your age, does it sound compelling to transform your feed into an infinitely scrolling entertainment and news firehose? Is there room for a bunch of similar networks thirsty for your indiscriminate attention?