Facebook Undergoes a Major Reorg. Here's What's Changing

Under intense user and government scrutiny of over user privacy and election meddling, Facebook is reorganizing its product and engineering efforts into three buckets, according to a new report.

The new structure includes separate teams for the company’s apps, new platforms and infrastructure, and central product services.

The changes are intended partly to improve communication and create bigger teams dedicated to user privacy, tech news site Recode said in a report on Tuesday.

Here’s what is happening:

Family of apps

Leader: Chief product officer Chris Cox

What’s new? As the name suggests, this division includes Facebook’s core apps: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Although Instagram is also part of the new team, it will continue to be managed by Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. Chris Daniels, vice president of Facebook’s Internet.org, will take over WhatsApp (after the former CEO and cofounder Jan Koum departed), Stan Chudnovsky, previously the head of product for Messenger, will take over Messenger, and Will Cathcart, a longtime Facebooker who works on product, will head the Facebook team (which includes the not-yet-launched dating app, according to Recode).

While tech news site TechCrunch points out that this could mean less autonomy for Instagram and WhatsApp, this restructuring is reportedly aimed at improving communication between the executives managing core apps.

New platforms and infrastructure

Leader: Chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer

What’s new? This division focus on new products and technology including blockchain, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and Workplace (a social network for work that competes with Slack), and privacy-focused product.

For users, privacy may be the most interesting aspect of the reshuffling. Another Recode report from Tuesday says that David Baser, a product director who was working on GDPR privacy policies, will head up a privacy product division of around 300 engineers and other product developers. Their first product may well be the “clear history” function, which would allow users to control and clear their Facebook browsing history, that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last week at F8, Facebook’s developers conference.

Additionally, Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, will work closely with Baser to make sure these products work. Her team is expected to grow to 120 people from 40.