Meta launched something on Friday.
It’s called Forum.
You won’t hear about it from them. Not really. They didn’t post a press release. No announcement on X. The company stayed quiet.
That’s how we found out.
Social media watcher Matt Navarra spotted the new icon in the App Store and shouted from the rooftops of Threads. He compared it to Reddit. Focused on community. Less about the celebrity, more about the people in your specific circles.
“Your feed is built around conversations from real people.”
That’s the pitch.
Right now it’s iPhone only.
The premise is simple. You already belong to Facebook groups. Maybe for buying furniture. Maybe for 49ers fandom. Maybe for knitting. Currently those lives are scattered. You have to hop app. Hop feed. Hop back out.
Forum smashes them together.
It pulls every group you’re in and stitches them into one timeline.
Here’s the twist.
There’s no algorithm deciding what’s “popular.” No posts from your high school friends who just liked a vacation photo.
Just the groups.
If you post here, it shows up in the actual Facebook group. Vice versa. The data flows both ways. It’s sync.
“We test lots of new products publicly.”
That was it. The whole statement from Meta to CNET.
Bland.
Vague.
Deliberate?
You download the thing. Plug in your Facebook account. Your history comes with you.
At the bottom, there’s a search button called Ask. It’s AI.
Stop hunting.
You ask a question. It scans all your groups. Instead of opening twelve tabs to remember which group knew about the leaky pipe fix, the AI gives you the answer.
Is that magic? Or just useful?
I gave it a try.
First step. Download.
Second step. Login.
My feed populated instantly.
Soccer talk. Items for sale on Marketplace. Posts from friends who use my personal profile.
It felt crowded. For a minute.
Like trying to read five newspapers at once.
Then it clicked.
The noise dropped away. The ads vanished. The political rants from strangers were gone.
It cut through the junk.
You curate your feed by curating your groups. If a group becomes boring? Leave it in Facebook. It disappears in Forum.
Why does this feel awkward?
Maybe because Meta hates when you have too much data in one place. Too much control. This gives you the opposite of a personalized algorithmic nightmare. This gives you a mirror.
You see what you chose to follow.
Not what an engineer decided you should see.
Is this the future of community? Or just a beta test no one was asked about?
Who knows.
The app is sitting on the shelf now. Quiet.
Waiting.
To be ignored or adopted.
