Facebook will begin testing a reimagined, full-screen video experience later in 2026, head of Facebook Tom Alison announced on July 24, 2026. The test will initially roll out to countries where Facebook has identified a strong preference for video content, with potential expansion to the US planned for 2027. The Verge

The announcement arrives alongside the disclosure that Meta collectively lost 20 million users in the first quarter of 2026, according to the company's own data. That figure frames a series of product moves Facebook is making simultaneously, each targeting a different facet of user engagement.

On the same day as the video-experience announcement, Facebook launched Seller, a dedicated Craigslist-like app for Marketplace sellers. The company had already released its Forum app earlier in 2026, providing a standalone space for Facebook Groups. Both apps follow the same structural logic: extracting a high-engagement feature from the main Facebook client and giving it its own surface.

Facebook is also now offering a free verified badge obtainable through a selfie verification process, separate from the paid Meta Verified subscription, which starts at $11.99 per month. The free badge creates a two-tier verification structure: one that requires identity confirmation via selfie, and one that requires payment on top of that.

The strategic thread connecting these moves traces back to at least May 2024, when Alison told Reuters in an interview that young adult users were coming to Facebook initially for sections like Marketplace and Groups, not for the core feed. Reuters The current product roadmap appears to treat that observation as an actionable thesis: if Marketplace, Groups, and video are the surfaces that pull users in, each deserves dedicated investment.

The full-screen video test is the most conspicuous of the announcements, and its resemblance to TikTok's vertical-feed format is not subtle. Facebook has iterated on its video presentation multiple times over the years, but a full-screen reimagining represents a more aggressive positioning of video as a primary surface rather than an embedded feature within the News Feed. Starting in countries with demonstrated video preference, rather than in the US market, gives Facebook a lower-risk testing environment before any potential stateside rollout.

The standalone apps carry their own logic. Forum and Seller both assume that a dedicated app can serve a specific use case better than the monolithic Facebook client, where Marketplace listings and Group threads compete for attention alongside everything else. Whether users will download and maintain separate Facebook-affiliated apps for these functions remains an open question, one that Meta's Q1 2026 user loss puts in sharp relief.

The free verification badge adds a separate dimension. By decoupling proof-of-personhood from the paid Meta Verified subscription, Facebook is expanding identity verification across its user base without requiring payment. The paid tier retains its $11.99-per-month price point. How the platform distinguishes free-badge accounts from paid-badge accounts in the user interface, and whether the distinction carries meaningful trust signaling, will matter for adoption.

Looking at the broader picture, the simultaneous rollout of a video redesign, two standalone apps, and a restructured verification system amounts to a multi-front response to sustained user decline. The 20 million-user loss in Q1 2026 is the kind of number that forces product strategy to move quickly and across multiple surfaces at once. Facebook is not betting on a single change to reverse the trend; it is deploying several, each aimed at a different user behavior and demographic segment.

Worth flagging is the risk inherent in the standalone-app strategy. The industry has seen repeatedly that splitting features into separate apps works when the use case is strong enough to sustain independent engagement, and fails when users find the overhead of a new download not worth the marginal improvement. Facebook's own history with spinoff apps is mixed. What is different here is that the company is extracting features that Alison himself identified as primary entry points for young adults, which at least grounds the strategy in observed behavior rather than speculation about what users might want.

The video test, the verification tier, and the standalone apps are all currently announced or in early testing. None of them is a finished product, and the US market may not see the full-screen video experience until 2027 if the international test proceeds to expansion. The pace will depend on engagement data from the initial rollout countries, which Facebook has not yet named.

What is clear from the scope of these announcements is that Facebook is restructuring its product around the activities that demonstrably retain users, rather than continuing to treat the main feed as the universal entry point. Whether that restructuring can offset a 20 million-user quarterly decline is the question the next several quarters of Meta's reporting will answer.