Mark Zuckerberg Admits Facebook Is Losing Its Cool — And He’s Not Sure How to Fix It

Mark Zuckerberg knows Facebook isn’t cool anymore — and he’s been concerned about that for years.

Recently revealed internal emails between Zuckerberg and Tom Alison, the head of Facebook, highlight Meta’s growing anxiety over the social network’s declining relevance. The messages, dated April 2022, were submitted as part of the Federal Trade Commission’s ongoing antitrust case against Meta and paint a candid picture of the platform’s cultural struggles.

While Facebook still boasts steady engagement numbers, Zuckerberg made it clear in the emails that cultural influence is a much more important — and worrisome — metric.

“Even though the FB app’s engagement is steady in many places, it feels like its cultural relevance is decreasing quickly,” Zuckerberg wrote. “And I worry that this may be a leading indicator of future health issues.”

The tone of the exchange shows a CEO grappling with the idea that younger users — and the internet at large — have largely moved on to other platforms.

The Problem With Friending

One of Zuckerberg’s biggest concerns was how outdated the core structure of Facebook felt. The concept of “friending” people — once a revolutionary idea — now seemed clunky and irrelevant.

“People’s friend graphs are stale,” he wrote, “and the act of adding someone as a friend on Facebook feels too heavy. Would you rather be seen adding someone on Facebook or on Instagram?”

He even floated a radical idea: starting over completely by wiping everyone’s friend networks and letting users rebuild from scratch.

The Follow vs. Friend Divide

Another key issue Zuckerberg identified was that Facebook hadn’t embraced the follower model that drives engagement on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Instead of keeping up, Facebook stuck with its “friends-first” identity — and that may have been a mistake.

“Every other modern social network is built on following,” Zuckerberg acknowledged. “It’s possible the FB app is just outdated because it never adopted this fundamental innovation.”

Groups Aren’t the Answer

Facebook’s push to center its platform around communities — especially through Groups — hasn’t delivered the cultural clout Meta hoped for. Even Zuckerberg expressed doubt.

“I’m optimistic about community messaging,” he said. “But after several years of investing in Groups, I’m not sure how much further we can push this. It’s possible groups will just never be as big as friending or following.”

Reels Can’t Save Facebook Alone

In 2022, Facebook had just rolled out Reels — its short-form video feature designed to compete with TikTok. While Zuckerberg was on board with shifting resources toward Reels, he admitted that the experience lacked the personal connection Facebook was once known for.

Reels “reduce the social sense of feeling connected to the person creating the content,” he noted. The content being served up felt too similar to what users might find on other apps and lacked a distinct Facebook identity.

Alison echoed that sentiment, responding that Facebook doesn’t “have a culturally relevant public content ecosystem” and instead is dominated by “commoditized news and video publisher content.”

Competition — Even From Inside Meta

Interestingly, one of Facebook’s toughest competitors may be its own sibling: Instagram. While Facebook has struggled to stay fresh, Instagram continues to thrive with younger users and remains more culturally resonant.

Zuckerberg pointed out the need to differentiate the two without cannibalizing either.

“We need a strategy that doesn’t leave one service picking up scraps from the other,” he said. “Right now, IG is doing well on cultural relevance and FB isn’t.”

The emails provide a rare look into the high-level worries at Meta about the future of Facebook. With TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, BeReal, and even newer players like Poparazzi attracting younger users, Facebook faces an uphill battle to recapture its former influence — if it can at all.