‘OG Facebook’ is back with big change to Facebook’s iPhone app

Earlier this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said one of his biggest priorities for the year was “to get back to some OG Facebook.” Starting today, we’re seeing the fruits of that thanks to a new Friends tab rolling out inside the Facebook app.

New Friends tab works the way Facebook used to, before it went downhill

Mike Isaac writes for The New York Times:

The company said the Facebook app would now include a separate news feed for users that featured posts shared exclusively by people’s friends and family. The feature, called the Friends Tab, will replace a tab in the app that showed new friend requests or suggested friends. Friends Tab will instead show a scrolling feed of posts, such as photos, video stories, text, birthday notifications and friend requests. For now, it will be available to Facebook users only in the United States and Canada.

“This idea of having a central place of what’s going on with your friends, that was like the magic of the early days of social media,” said Mr. Alison, who is head of the Facebook app. “We’re making sure that there’s still a place for this stuff on Facebook. It is something that shouldn’t get lost in the modern social media mix.”

Changing one tab in the Facebook app may not seem like a big deal. But the new Friends tab delivers a key feature Facebook has long been missing.

The original (“OG”) way Facebook worked was centered entirely on your friends and family.

You friended various people, and updates they wrote and shared would appear in your feed.

Over time, Facebook’s main feed became packed with a variety of other content too. Suggested posts, content from brands, and a bunch of other clutter squeezed out what first made Facebook great.

Now, this new Friends tab sounds like it will be what Facebook’s main feed used to be, before it went downhill.

Per the article, this change is rolling out today. I had to force quit the app before it showed up for me, but if you’re not seeing it yet, and you’re in the US or Canada, you should soon.

What do you think of Facebook’s new Friends tab? Let us know in the comments.