This week, Mark Zuckerberg took the stand in an antitrust trial that would outcome within the breakup of Meta’s social networking empire. It could be years earlier than the almost 3 billion customers of the corporate’s flagship app Fb—recognized internally because the Blue app—study the destiny of the service they nonetheless use, regardless of the fixed obituaries. (For the report, two years in the past, Tom Alison, who heads the service, issued a statement affirming “Fb is just not lifeless nor dying.”) However with all of the hubbub surrounding the trial, Fb customers may need missed probably the most important information about Blue in years. On March 27, 2025, the 21-year-old firm quietly announced a new feature on its cell app: an possibility that might give customers the novel expertise of seeing their associates’ content material on Fb. Lastly, there was an alternative choice to a information feed overwhelmed with rubbish, gossip, and influencer movies that folks don’t essentially ask for however can’t resist clicking on after which feeling unhealthy about. By finding and choosing the Mates tab, your feed will populate completely with posts from individuals you realize in actual life and that you’ve chosen to attach with. You would possibly even name it a social app. Think about!
The corporate’s clarification is telling. “Over time, Fb developed to satisfy altering wants…” learn the press launch, “however the magic of associates has fallen away.” I marvel on the passive voice. Meta’s valuation is over a trillion. It has related almost half of humanity—all due to the facility of individuals wanting to maintain up with family and friends. And one way or the other, the corporate’s core objective of connecting associates simply … fell away? Did the 1000’s of engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, and managers engaged on Fb simply wake in the future and say, “Hey, has anybody seen the stuff that’s the very motive we’re an organization?”
No, this didn’t simply occur. Take into account that, in that 2023 press launch about Fb not being lifeless, Alison listed the priorities for the app that 12 months, together with “synthetic intelligence, messaging, creators and monetization.” Not a phrase about boosting pal content material, though Meta executives knew that folks needed to see simply that. It got here out in court docket that for years Zuckerberg has been conscious that his customers crave listening to extra from their associates. A Meta survey in 2020 discovered that 61 % of customers needed extra pal posts, and 66 % needed to see a wider range of posts amongst their associates. A 12 months later, one other survey reported that three out of the highest 4 “ache factors” on Fb have been attributable to what the Federal Commerce Fee referred to as “decreased funding in family and friends sharing.”
Right here’s one clarification for this. Content material from influencers, political activists, and fake information organizations is extra worthwhile and retains individuals on the service longer. Misinformation from a stranger is value extra to Meta than household updates and journey images from associates. These don’t normally go viral. That’s why, when Alison wrote about AI, he didn’t imply utilizing it to search out what your mates are saying however to attach you with creators who’re posting to spice up their very own wallets, with the assistance of Fb monetization. On the stand, Zuckerberg offered a different explanation for the change: Individuals started sharing on messaging apps as an alternative of social platforms. However may or not it’s that the rationale that they stopped sharing on Fb was that each one these poisonous posts from strangers made the platform disagreeable?
Zuckerberg was slippery when it got here to admitting that he purchased Instagram and WhatsApp to get rid of competitors—a key challenge within the trial. However he was frank in acknowledging that the mission of the corporate has veered dramatically from the unique feel-good campaign to attach people. It’s now as a lot an leisure firm as a social community, he says. A chart shared by Meta confirmed that leisure had overwhelmed social content material. In 2025, Fb customers spent solely 17 % of their time taking a look at content material shared from associates. That’s not as a result of they like to learn stuff from influencers and anger-boosters—keep in mind, Meta’s personal surveys present that customers are dying to see stuff from individuals they know. But Zuckerberg matter-of-factly famous that on the subject of pal content material, “That a part of what we do hasn’t actually grown.” Once more, the passive voice!
Given the starvation individuals must see pal posts, one would possibly count on that the abilities of Meta’s proficient workforce could be employed to maximise the worth of human connections. For a few years, it was. Within the early 2010s, I used to be continuously referred to as to Mark Zuckerberg’s convention room, dubbed the Aquarium, to see some attention-grabbing venture meant to extend the worth of the social community. A few of these tasks didn’t work out—keep in mind graph search?—however they have been trustworthy makes an attempt at fulfilling the corporate mission. As the last decade progressed, the social side of Fb grew to become much less of a precedence for Zuckerberg, and his ardour shifted to digital actuality and synthetic intelligence.