Facebook has announced the launch of a new ‘Friends’ tab, aimed at providing users with a dedicated feed of posts, stories, reels, birthdays, and friend requests from their connections. This new feature, unveiled by the company on Thursday, mirrors the Following and Close Friends feeds available on Instagram, and it will exclude any recommended posts. The Friends tab represents the first of several “OG” features Meta intends to introduce over the coming months.
Facebook’s Friends Tab Begins Rollout in Two Countries
According to a blog post from Meta, the company has recognized that despite the introduction of various new features, the essence of friendship on the platform has diminished. To restore this element, Meta is launching the new Friends tab, which is among many enhancements set to arrive this year.
The redesigned Friends tab will feature a vertically scrolling feed that includes a variety of content posted by friends. This encompasses standard posts, reels, birthdays, and ephemeral stories that vanish after 24 hours. Previously, the tab displayed pending friend requests and suggestions, often categorized as People You May Know.
In this new Friends feed, Meta assures users that only posts from their Facebook connections will be shown, entirely omitting recommended posts. However, details about whether these posts will be presented in chronological order have not been disclosed by the company.
Facebook is not the first app owned by Meta to introduce such a friends-only feed. In 2022, Instagram launched its own versions, the ‘Following’ and ‘Close Friends’ feeds, allowing users to see posts from those they follow and from a select group of close friends, respectively.
The new Friends tab is currently being rolled out to users in Canada and the United States, but there is no confirmation regarding its availability in other regions, including India. North American users can access the new feed by navigating to their profile in the Facebook app, selecting Settings & Privacy > Settings > Tab bar, and pinning the Friends feed to their navigation bar.
