In the United Kingdom, a WhatsApp feature that allows users to bring many group chats together under the umbrella of a single topic and communicate updates across them all has gone live.
The Communities feature, which was announced earlier this year and has been in testing since then, will allow users to organize different group chats together under a single main topic, such as their children’s school or the street they live on, with Community admins able to share messages with people across all groups.
It will appear at the bottom of the app as a tab. Users can then create new communities or join existing ones.
The capability will be available as part of an upgrade that will also allow users to create and participate in polls using their chats.
Furthermore, group video calling will now accommodate up to 32 members.
In addition, WhatsApp announced that the maximum size of a group will now be 1,024 participants. It is presently 512, having been gradually expanded over time, though competitor Telegram permits groups of up to 200,000 members.
Mark Zuckerberg and Whatsapp’s comment
“With Communities, we’re aiming to raise the bar for how organisations communicate with a level of privacy and security not found anywhere else,” WhatsApp announced the launch in a blog post.
“The alternatives available today require trusting apps or software companies with a copy of their messages – and we think they deserve the higher level of security provided by end-to-end encryption.
“Once you’re in a community, you can easily switch between available groups to get the information you need, when you need it, and admins can send important updates to everyone in the Community.”
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company yesterday said:
“Today we’re launching Communities on WhatsApp.
“It makes groups better by enabling sub-groups, multiple threads, announcement channels, and more.
“We’re also rolling out polls and 32-person video calling too. All secured by end-to-end encryption so your messages stay private.”
