It wasn’t working before either. What they did is they removed your “offline friends” appearing in your friend-list.
However for many people a lot of their friends will be Online in Epic, but “offline” in Predator: Hunting Grounds. Which means that “now” you won’t see them online at all, if they are online. This means rebooting the game, sometimes for multiple individuals.
Previously you could accept a game-invite from someone who was in a ‘bugged offline state’, but they aren’t appearing anymore, so they broke their own system more than before.