WhatsApp is testing a new feature called Communities to organize groups into larger structures that can be used by jobs or schools, the messaging service, owned by Meta Platforms, said Thursday.
The feature will bring together groups limited to 256 users under larger umbrellas, where administrators can send alerts to a community of thousands.
Communities could trigger other messaging apps, such as Telegram, which was widely used to communicate in the Russia-Ukraine war, and other private messaging platforms, such as iMessage or Sign.
“It’s been clear for some time that the way we communicate online is changing,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announcing the news in a post on his public Facebook profile.
“Most of us use social media and channels to find interesting content and keep up to date. But for a deeper level of interaction, messaging has become at the heart of our digital lives. It’s more intimate and personal, and encryption is also more secure. “
The messaging service, which is end-to-end encrypted and has about 2 billion users, said the Communities feature will also be end-to-end encrypted.
“It’s really geared towards the communities you’re already part of in your private communication life,” Whatsapp CEO Will Cathcart said in an interview with Reuters, citing Slack or Microsoft Teams owned by Salesforce as comparable types of communication.
He said there were currently no charging plans for the new feature, which is being tested with a small number of global communities, but did not rule out offering “premium enterprise features” in the future.
What are the main features?
WhatsApp fights abuse, including mass media and the spread of misinformation and hate speech.
Cathcart said users will not be able to search for different communities on WhatsApp and will use anti-abuse tools and safeguards as restrictions on referrals for the new feature.
WhatsApp said that there will be changes in its function for groups before the start of the communities.
It says it adds the ability for group administrators to delete problematic messages from everyone’s chat, and administrators can remove people from an entire community group, while users will be able to quietly leave a group without everyone else being notified. .
The groups will also receive voice chats for up to 32 people at a time.
Communities will also have group features, including emoji responses, file sharing, and larger voice calls.
Zuckerberg said Communities will be introduced in the coming months.
He said Meta will build community messaging features for Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.
Meta also plans to implement end-to-end encryption in other messaging services in its applications as part of its current announced privacy direction.
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