WhatsApp announces a new feature called “Communities”. The feature will be launched worldwide but at the moment no specific date has been set. The technological innovation will make it possible to organize separate groups under one umbrella, to prevent the chat from being cluttered and unfocused.
The company said in a statement that community members will be able to receive updates sent to the entire community, and will also be able to join smaller discussion groups on more specific topics.
The company has also announced new capabilities for groups: emoji responses will be enabled (similar to private messages on Instagram and Messenger), which will allow users to “respond quickly without flooding the conversation with messages”; Group managers will be able to remove messages from the chat, file sharing will reach an increased volume of up to 2 GB to allow users to work together on projects easily via WhatsApp. “Voice calls will allow up to 32 people and a new design. ‘- without all group members being notified.
At the center of each community will be a description and menu of groups that users can choose to join. Managers will be the ones to decide which groups will become part of the community by creating new groups or linking existing groups. Community leaders will also have the ability to disconnect groups from the community and remove members from the entire community. The community administrators will also be the only ones who can send messages to all members of the community – in the part to be called the “message group” of the community, which can be sent to thousands of users.
The communities are private, so the company has stated that it will continue to “protect messages through end-to-end encryption”. The company further stated that in order to maintain the user’s privacy, his phone number will not be exposed to the entire community, but only to its administrators and members of groups shared by it only.
The company said that “when we become acquainted with communities that engage in offensive content, such as distributing pedophile material, coordinating violence or human trafficking, WhatsApp will block individual or administrative community members, dismantle the community, or block all its users. We will rely on all unencrypted information, including The name of the community, its description and user reports, in order to take appropriate action. “