Zuckerberg Wants to Help You Make Facebook Friends Again

Back in 2022, as Facebook’s popularity started to dip, Mark Zuckerberg came up with an unusual idea to bring the spark back: what if everyone had to rebuild their friend list from scratch?

Yep, he pitched that.

The idea came up during internal discussions at Meta, and it recently came to light during an antitrust trial in Washington, D.C., where Zuckerberg took the stand. 

One of the emails entered into evidence shows Zuckerberg tossing out what he called a “potentially crazy idea” — resetting everyone’s social connections to boost engagement.

He wrote, “Option 1. Double down on Friending. One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s graphs and having them start again.”

But not everyone was on board.

Tom Alison, who was running Facebook at the time, pushed back. He warned the move could mess with key features, especially on Instagram. He said the friend connection is still too important to users on both platforms.

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Zuckerberg didn’t seem fully convinced by Alison’s concerns and even asked how hard it would be to shift Facebook profiles to more of a “follow” model, like how Twitter or Instagram works.

In the end, that idea never moved forward. No one’s friend list got wiped. But Zuckerberg’s comments did hint at something bigger: Facebook isn’t really about “friends” anymore.

While testifying in court, he admitted that the platform today is more about entertainment and discovery than keeping up with your buddy from high school. “The friend part has gone down quite a bit,” he said.

Still, Meta hasn’t completely given up on the friends angle. Just last month, Facebook rolled out a new “Friends” tab — a dedicated space to see updates only from your real-life connections. 

The company said it’s trying to bring back the original Facebook feeling, where people came to see what their friends and family were up to.

Alison echoed that sentiment in a chat with The New York Times.

“That was the magic of early social media.”

He said.

“We want to make sure that part doesn’t get lost.”