'Delete-and-rebuild': Zuckerberg had this 'crazy' plan to revive Facebook's relevance
What's the story
In 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pitched a radical plan to make Facebook more socially relevant.
The plan was to delete users' friend networks and get them to rebuild their connections from the ground up.
The details emerged during an antitrust trial against the company in Washington DC, where Zuckerberg was testifying.
Here, many emails were introduced as evidence, including the one where he disclosed his "crazy" idea to Meta's top leadership.
Company response
Zuckerberg's email and response from Tom Alison
In his internal email, Zuckerberg proposed a bold move to revive Facebook's user engagement via social graphs or friend networks.
He wrote, "Option 1. Double down on Friending. One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone's graphs and having them start again."
However, Tom Alison, then head of Facebook, was skeptical of the proposal. He feared it could disrupt key features of Meta's other platform Instagram as well.
Platform evolution
Zuckerberg's testimony and the evolution of Facebook
During his testimony in a federal courtroom, Zuckerberg clarified that Facebook never implemented his proposal.
He admitted that the platform's primary purpose has shifted from connecting with friends to becoming a broad discovery and entertainment space.
"The friend part has gone down quite a bit," he testified, highlighting the significant change in Facebook's user experience over time.
Resurgence
Facebook's new 'friends tab'
Despite the evolution of the platform, Facebook recently announced the addition of a "friends tab."
The feature would give users a separate news feed showing posts shared only by their friends and family.
Reacting to this, Alison told The New York Times that having a central place for updates about friends was like the magic of early social media days. He stressed they're ensuring there's still space for this on Facebook.