WhatsApp Introduces New Communities Feature: Here’s What It Is

WhatsApp recently introduced a new communities feature to help people communicate and coordinate within a community

WhatsApp has announced a new communities feature to help organizations like schools, local clubs, and non-profit organizations that now rely on WhatsApp to communicate. The free messaging platform says that this move has been taken as the pandemic lead to most people looking for creative ways to work together while apart. “Given lots of feedback we’ve received, we think there’s more we can do to make it easier to help people manage these busy conversations among these kinds of groups,” said WhatsApp through its official blog.

Through the new communities feature, WhatsApp users will be able to bring together separate groups under one umbrella in manner that’s most suitable for them. Users will be able to receive updates sent to the entire Community and organize smaller discussion groups on what matters to them. Communities will also contain powerful new tools for admins, including announcement messages that are sent to everyone and control over which groups can be included. “We’ve built the ability for admins to delete messages sent from anyone in a group to address errant or problematic messages,” says Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp.

The platform said that Communities will make it easier for a school principal to bring all the parents of the school together to share must-read updates and set up groups about specific classes, extracurricular activities, or volunteer needs. “We’ll also support larger file sharing up to 2GB at a time and 32 person group conference calls you can start with just one tap. We’ll do all of this and more with end-to-end encryption because workplaces, organizations, and close-knit groups deserve strong security and shouldn’t have to give up their private communications,” added Cathcart.

Other New Improvements That Are Coming to WhatsApp

• Emoji reactions are coming to WhatsApp so people can quickly share their opinion without flooding chats with new messages.
• One-tap voice calling will be introduced for up to 32 people with all new design.