What are WhatsApp communities and how do they work?

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(Pocket-lint) – Meta-owner company WhatsApp has announced a new feature, called Communities, which it plans to start testing in the coming months before rolling it out more widely. Here’s everything you need to know.

Also Read: 45 Secret WhatsApp Tips and Tricks

What are WhatsApp communities?

In WhatsApp, you need a person’s phone number to add them, and group chats are limited to 256 participants. But now, a Communities tab rolled out to a number of groups will allow thousands of people to participate in a community that hosts multiple discussion subgroups. Once you’re in a community, your phone number will be hidden (except for admins and people you’re in a subgroup with).

Described as a “major evolution” for the messaging app by WhatsApp CEO Mark Zuckerberg, an unreleased version of Communities was first noticed last year, but WhatsApp has waited until now to release it. announce.

Zuckerberg said Communities will focus on feeds: “In the same way that social feeds took the core technology behind the internet and made it possible for everyone to find people and content online, I think community messaging will take the core protocols behind one-to-one messaging and extend them so you can more easily communicate with groups of people to do things together.”

How do communities work in WhatsApp?

Not much is known at this time, as Pocket-lint has yet to test Communities, and WhatsApp admits it is still working out the details of exactly how Communities will work based on comments from the first testers. But according to WhatsApp and Zuckerberg’s announcement posts on Communities, you can expect the following user experience:

Features

With Communities, Meta says you can…

• Unite distinct groups under one roof
• Receive updates sent to the whole community
• Easily organize small discussion groups on what matters to you.
• Use powerful tools as an administrator, including
  • Announcement messages that are sent to everyone
  • Control which groups can be included

WhatsApp is also rolling out new features to better support communities, such as emoji reactions, the ability for group admins to delete messages, file sharing up to 2GB, and calls to up to 32 people.

Examples

Communities could make it easier for a school principal, for example, to bring together all the parents of students. They can share the most important updates and create groups about specific classes, extracurricular activities, or volunteer needs. Communities will allow other types of tight-knit groups, such as members of a religious congregation or even businesses, to have secure and private group conversations, too.

Are communities private in WhatsApp?

WhatsApp has declared Communities to be “inherently private”. Also, unlike Telegram, all communication between people in a Community is encrypted, although the name and description of a Community are not encrypted.

You can read more about how Meta approaches privacy and security for communities here.

When will WhatsApp Communities be available?

WhatsApp will test Communities later this year in select countries.

Eventually, Communities will roll out to all users worldwide, allowing you to combine separate group chats “under one umbrella with a structure that works for them,” WhatsApp explained in an announcement blog post. . “That way, people can get updates sent out to the whole community and easily organize smaller discussion groups about what interests them.”

Are communities coming to Facebook?

Yes. Meta is working on community features for Facebook and Messenger.

Written by Maggie Tillman.