In its quest to capture nearly every Internet-connected person on the planet, Facebook is rolling out a new internal program designed to help its staff better understand how users in regions with slowers connections access its site.

The program, called 2G Tuesdays, will slow down the speed of the website for internal staff every Tuesday to emulate users with slower connections.

“People are coming online at a staggering rate in emerging markets and, in most cases, are doing so on mobile via 2G connections,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. “But on the lower end of 2G networks, it can take about two minutes to download a webpage. We need to understand how people use Facebook in different Internet connections in all parts of the world so we can build the best experience for them We need to understand how people use Facebook in different Internet connections in all parts of the world so we can build the best experience for them.”

Initial reports of the internal program showed up on Business Insider, where Facebook’s engineering director Tom Alison told the site that the program will be opt-in for employees.

"Employees will have the option to have their mobile phones simulate a 2G connection," the Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Mashable. The opt-in program will allow employees to log in on the slower speed for an hour, after clicking a screen prompt.

Assisting potential Facebook users with slower speeds has long been a focus for the social network. Back in 2012, the site made a point of equipping some engineers with Nokia phones with slower speeds to "understand the experience of users who are not like us."

And earlier this month, the site optimized its News Feed to work with 2G cellular connections.

"We hope this will help us understand how people are using Facebook on slower connections," the spokesperson told Mashable, "so we can build a better product for all of the people using it."

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