Facebook to roll out redesigned home feed

Facebook is rolling out a redesign to split the home screen into two sections: one with posts from accounts users follow and another with content recommended by the platform.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Thursday that the app will open to a screen where Facebook’s “discovery engine” will recommend content “we think you’ll care most about.”

The new Home tab will be driven by Facebook’s machine learning ranking system, designing an experience “uniquely personalized’ to each user, according to a company announcement. 

The separate “Feeds tab” will allow users to customize and control their experience and see posts in a chronological order from friends, groups and pages users follow. The tab won’t include any suggested posts. 

The update comes as Facebook competes with the increasingly popular TikTok app. Instagram, another app owned under Facebook parent company Meta, released its Reels feature, which mimics TikTok’s short video function. 

The redesign will launch on Thursday and will be rolled out globally over the next week. 

Facebook over the past year has been seeking to undergo a transformation, especially amid mounting scrutiny from lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad. 

In October, the company announced the new name Meta and Zuckerberg said the company will be focusing more heavily on augmented and virtual reality technologies in the metaverse.

Updated: 11:11 a.m.