Facebook will begin testing a redesigned full-screen video experience later in 2026, head of Facebook Tom Alison announced on July 24, 2026. The test will start in countries where Facebook has seen strong demand for video content, with a possible expansion to the US in 2027. The Verge

The announcement comes alongside data showing that Meta lost 20 million users in the first quarter of 2026. That number helps explain why Facebook is pushing several product changes at the same time, each aimed at a different way people use the platform.

On the same day as the video announcement, Facebook launched Seller, a standalone app for Marketplace sellers that works much like Craigslist. Earlier in 2026, the company released Forum, a separate app for Facebook Groups. Both apps follow the same idea: taking a popular feature out of the main Facebook app and giving it its own dedicated space.

Facebook is also now offering a free verified badge through a selfie-based identity check. This is separate from the paid Meta Verified subscription, which costs $11.99 per month and up. The result is a two-tier system: one tier requires you to prove who you are with a selfie, and the other requires payment on top of that.

The thinking behind these moves goes back to at least May 2024, when Alison told Reuters that young adult users were coming to Facebook primarily for sections like Marketplace and Groups, not for the main feed. Reuters The current roadmap treats that observation as a working thesis: if Marketplace, Groups, and video are what pull people in, each one deserves its own investment.

The full-screen video test is the most visible of these changes, and its similarity to TikTok's vertical scrolling format is clear. Facebook has adjusted its video presentation several times over the years, but a full-screen redesign positions video as a primary surface rather than a feature tucked inside the News Feed. Starting the test in countries with high video engagement, rather than in the US, gives Facebook a lower-risk environment before any potential stateside launch.

The standalone apps follow their own logic. Forum and Seller both assume that a dedicated app can serve a specific purpose better than the main Facebook client, where Marketplace listings and Group threads compete for attention alongside everything else. Whether users will actually download and keep separate Facebook-affiliated apps for these functions is an open question, and Meta's Q1 2026 user loss makes that question more pressing.

The free verification badge adds another layer. By separating proof of identity from the paid subscription, Facebook is expanding verification across its user base without requiring payment. The paid tier keeps its $11.99-per-month price. How the platform distinguishes free-badge accounts from paid-badge accounts in the interface, and whether users will read the distinction as meaningful, will matter for adoption.

Taken together, the video redesign, two standalone apps, and the restructured verification system amount to a multi-front response to a sustained decline in users. The 20 million-user loss in a single quarter is the kind of figure that pushes a product team to move quickly and across several surfaces at once. Facebook is not counting on one change to turn things around; it is trying several, each targeting a different user behavior and demographic.

There is a real risk in the standalone-app approach. The tech industry has seen repeatedly that splitting features into separate apps works when the use case is strong enough to keep people coming back on its own, and fails when users decide that downloading and maintaining a new app is not worth the improvement. Facebook's own track record with spinoff apps is mixed. What sets this effort apart is that the company is building on features Alison himself identified as the primary entry points for young adults, which at least grounds the strategy in observed behavior rather than guesswork.

The video test, the verification tier, and the standalone apps are all currently announced or in early testing. None is a finished product, and the US 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 actually retain users, rather than continuing to treat the main feed as the universal starting 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.