From this Thursday, the application of Facebook will look more like TikTok. Metaname with which the parent company that owns the largest social network on the planet was renamed, today announced changes so that the user’s browsing experience includes more videos chosen by users algorithms of recommendation, thus being more similar to the model of the Chinese social giant.
It’s already TikTok, Youtube, Twitch o Instagram, audiovisual content has been gaining weight on digital platforms for years. Aware of this, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has also decided to bet on it. Thus, when they enter Facebook, users will see many more looping videos, images and status updates. This will cause the content published by family, friends and groups, previously in the center, to occupy a separate space in a lateral ‘feed’.
The home screen will also show a series of content selected by Facebook’s algorithms, which use the large volumes of personal data that they extract from their users to better understand their tastes and thus be able to recommend content based on the interests of each one. from them. Make privacy a business.
imitate the competition
In this way, Facebook follows one of its greatest traditions: imitate what its rivals do. In recent years, the social media giant has seen emerging platforms, especially TikTok, relaunch its popularity, especially among the youngest, making it a threat to its business. Facebook has more than 2.9 billion active users worldwide, while TikTok — born in 2016 — already exceeds 1 billion.
To avoid a hypothetical ‘sorpasso’ in the future, the company’s services have been shaped to more closely resemble the characteristics that have defined the success of its competition, such as TikTok’s video recommendation algorithms. Thus, in 2020 Instagram -also owned by Meta- launched Reelsa video function virtually identical to that of the Asian phenomenon.
Facebook’s facelift could have other reasons, such as the growing pressure from regulators on the company and other social networks in relation to doubts about the Data Protection of users and the proliferation of disinformationaccording to a source told the US media Axios.