Facebook is shaking things up in a massive way and reorganizing the company into 3 core areas (FB)

There's a massive shake-up afoot at Facebook.

The social networking giant is undergoing a huge restructuring, switching up its executives and rearranging the company into three core areas. Recode has a big report out with lots of the key details, and some Facebook execs are sharing info on Twitter.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the news of the re-organisation to Business Insider.

Facebook will now comprise of three key areas: Family of apps, led by chief product officer Chris Cox; New platforms and infrastructure, led by CTO Mike Schroepfer; and Central product services, led by VP of growth Javier Olivan.

The re-organisation comes after a bruising year for Facebook. The company has been battered by headlines about its misuse in the spread of Russian propaganda and disinformation, and more recently, the Cambridge Analytica scandal has ignited fears over security and data privacy.

Three big new categories

Facebook itself, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger all fall into the first category — they're the core, consumer-facing smartphone apps that Facebook offers. After the departure of WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum, Chris Daniels is taking over the encrypted messaging app, and Stan Chudnovsky is now heading up Messenger.

The second category is some of the more experimental stuff Facebook is working on. Andrew Bosworth is leading AR and VR. Jerome Pesenti is in charge of AI. And David Marcus, formerly the head of Messenger, is taking the helm of a newly announced blockchain unit.

Lastly, central product services is a lot of the core functionality that drives the company: Ads; analytics; integirty, growth, product management. Those three sections are being led by Mark Rabkin, Alex Schultz, and Naomi Gleit respectively.

Facebook is also adding a private equity executive, Cranemere CEO Jeff Zients, to its board of directors.

Facebook's apology tour

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on an apology tour in recent months, appearing before US Congress to discuss the company's failings and to promise to take a "broader view" of the company's responsibilities.

But Facebook is also attempting to move the conversation forwards, and at its F8 conference last week, the company made clear it doesn't intend to stop announcing new products and features while it fixes past mistakes.

This story is developing...