Facebook Embraces Short-Form Video Like TikTok
Starting this week, Facebook is shifting toward a TikTok style experience. The parent company, AimRenamed, which owns the largest social network globally, announced changes aimed at prioritizing video content curated by user interest. The shift emphasizes advisory style recommendations, mirroring the model that has made the Chinese platform so influential.
Video and audio visuals have grown in importance across digital platforms for years. Observing this trend, Mark Zuckerberg’s company is also betting on more engaging video formats. When users log into Facebook, they will encounter more looping clips, images, and status updates. Content from family, friends, and groups that used to sit at the center of the feed will move to a secondary stream along the side, reinforcing the new layout.
The home screen will highlight a stream of content chosen by Facebook’s algorithms. These systems analyze vast amounts of personal data to better understand user tastes and to tailor recommendations to individual interests. Privacy considerations are increasingly treated as a business factor in this setup.
Following the Competition
Facebook is clearly following a familiar path of imitation. In recent years, platforms such as TikTok have surged in popularity, especially among younger users, presenting a competitive challenge. Facebook, which has more than 2.9 billion active users worldwide, faces stiff pressure from newer apps that reach a broad audience; TikTok, founded in 2016, has surpassed 1 billion users in its own right.
To mitigate the risk of being surpassed, the company has redesigned features to resemble elements that drive the success of its rivals, notably TikTok’s video recommendation mechanisms. Instagram, also owned by Meta, introduced Reels in 2020, a video feature that closely mirrors the viral format popularized by the Asian platform.
There may be additional reasons behind Facebook’s facelift, including mounting regulatory scrutiny on large social networks and concerns about data protection, user numbers, and the spread of misinformation, as reported by sources cited in media outlets such as Axios.