In today’s episode, we dive into an intriguing revelation about Mark Zuckerberg. Recently, during the U.S. government’s antitrust trial against Meta, it came to light that Zuckerberg once toyed with the idea of deleting all of users’ Facebook friends as a way to revitalize the platform. He described this bold plan as a “potentially crazy idea,” which he floated in a 2022 message to Meta employees.

Zuckerberg suggested that by wiping everyone’s friend graphs, users would be compelled to reconnect with the platform, re-creating their social circles from scratch. However, this idea faced strong pushback from other Meta leaders, including Facebook's head, Tom Alison, and was ultimately scrapped.

Interestingly, this isn’t the only strategy Zuckerberg considered. He also contemplated shifting Facebook to a follower-based model, but that too didn’t materialize. Recently, the platform has renewed its focus on friendship, revamping its Friends tab to centralize friend requests and prioritize content shared by friends.

Zuckerberg remained optimistic about Facebook's future, stating, “I think there are a lot of opportunities to make [Facebook] way more culturally influential than it is today.” He aims to bring back the essence of early Facebook usage as he looks ahead to 2024. Stay tuned for more insights on how tech continues to evolve!
Link to Article