Meta launched Forum, which brings Facebook Groups to a separate application experience. The application, which is currently available in selected countries on iOS, comes with a flow structure centered on group sharing, an artificial intelligence-supported response system in the Ask tab, and an AI assistant for group administrators. Meta has moved Facebook Groups to a separate application with Forum. Forum is listed in the App Store under the name Forum, a Facebook app, and appears as a free iPhone application developed by Meta Platforms.
The application page states that Forum offers a more focused space around users’ existing Facebook groups and new communities they can explore. When users log in with their Facebook accounts, their groups, profiles and activities are moved to the Forum. The structure of the application is different from the main flow of Facebook. The flow in the Forum centers on the conversations in the groups the user is a member of.
In addition, suggested posts from different communities of which the user is not a member are also shown. This gives a Reddit-like feeling of usage, especially progressing through topics and communities. One of the most striking sections of the forum is the Ask tab. In this section, users can write their questions and the application creates artificial intelligence-supported answers by using shares in different Facebook groups.
Meta also offers a separate artificial intelligence assistant for group administrators in the Forum. According to the App Store description, this assistant helps administrators with group management, content moderation and keeping the community healthy. Despite this, administrators continue to have access to existing tools on Facebook, and control remains with group administrators. The forum does not operate as a new social network completely disconnected from Facebook.
The contents shared by users in the Forum also appear in the relevant Facebook group. Likewise, groups continue to exist on Facebook. The application offers the user the option to write under a pseudonym in group posts, but in public groups, administrators can see the real identity of these accounts. Meta’s move of Facebook Groups to a separate application is not a new experiment. The company released a separate Groups application in 2014, when it operated under the name Facebook.
This app was shut down in early 2017 and users were redirected to the main Facebook app. The forum brings this old idea back to the agenda with an artificial intelligence layer. Meta’s new application made a quiet debut. Speaking to The Verge, Meta communications manager Feryal Hemamda said the company is publicly testing many new products to see what users find interesting and useful for their experience with Meta apps.
The Forum was put into use as one of the new examples of this testing process. On the App Store page of the Forum, it is stated that the application is listed for users aged 13 and over, is in the Social Network category, is 109.2 MB in size and supports 34 languages, including English. The page also includes a note that some features may not be available depending on the country or region.
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