Facebook’s New Friends-Only Feed Lets You Scroll Like It’s 2008
Facebook wants to be your friend again by showing you what your real friends are up to. In an attempt to protect itself from the AI slop and clickbait images that litter its algorithmic feed, Facebook is now updating its mobile app’s dedicated Friends tab to become a full-fledged feed, only showing you updates from real people you’re actually interested in. This is a pretty big change, as previously the Friends tab only showed friend requests and people you might know.
According to Facebook, the new Friends tab is one of “several new Facebook features” that will be released throughout the year, so this is just the beginning. However, while the new feature began rolling out yesterday in the US and Canada, the timeline for its global rollout is still unknown.
How does the new Friends feed work?
In addition to buttons at the top for viewing friend requests, birthdays, and suggestions for people to follow, the Friends tab will now let you scroll down to see your friend’s stories, videos, and messages, just like the good old days. It still doesn’t feel entirely chronological—Facebook hasn’t made it clear how posts are organized in this tab—but hey, it’s a start.
How to pin your friends feed to the tab bar
By default, the new Friends feed is hidden. Don’t expect to see this in the spotlight just because you updated your Facebook app. You should find it in your home channel navigation bar at the very bottom of the screen, hidden behind an icon depicting one person standing in front of another. But if you don’t see it, you can also pin it to the navigation bar manually. To do this, click your profile picture and select Settings & Privacy > Settings > Tab Bar . Here, click the button next to “Friends” and select the “Pin” option.
Now the friends feed will be available in the tab bar. You can long press the Friends tab to unpin it if you don’t want to use this feature in the future.
Hey, you can’t turn off Meta AI , but seeing your friend’s life updates is at least something.