Communities, a new WhatsApp feature that offers bigger, more organized conversation groups that were first put through testing earlier this year, is now officially available. Communities introduce a number of new features to the messaging platform with the goal of enhancing communication and organization among businesses, clubs, schools, and other private groups. These features include admin controls, support for sub-groups and announcement groups, 32-person voice and video calls, larger file sharing, emoji reactions, and polls.
Communities themselves provide end-to-end encryption and can accommodate groups of up to 1024 users.
Emoji reactions, massive file sharing (up to 2GB), and the option for administrators to remove messages are just a few of the features created for Communities that have already made their way to the WhatsApp platform before today's debut. Now, the business claims surveys,
Due to the fact that both the new feature and Facebook Groups enable features like sub-groups, file sharing, admin functionality, and more, there may initially be some parallels between the two. WhatsApp Communities, however, are designed to be used by people who may already be connected in the real world, unlike Facebook Groups, which are frequently used by dispersed strangers with a shared interest. Because WhatsApp is phone number-based, as opposed to Facebook, members of these discussion groups already know one another because they may have swapped phone numbers or at the very least provided their numbers with the group admin. The phone numbers will only be made visible to admins and members of the same sub-groups as you; they will remain concealed from the rest of the Community.
This is meant to balance users’ demand for privacy with the need to allow fellow group members to reach you. For instance, you may not personally know every parent on your kid’s sports team, but you’re likely comfortable interacting with them in a private group setting that may exist as a sub-group of the entire school’s Community.
In addition, unlike Facebook Groups which can be discoverable on the platform, WhatsApp Communities are hidden. There will not be a search and discovery feature available — you have to be invited to join.
Communities are set up with a central announcement group that informs all members of the most crucial messages. However, only the admin-approved tiny sub-groups of users are allowed to chat. By doing this, members can avoid receiving excessive communications about group activities and events they are not involved in. For a planning group or volunteer project, for instance, participants might set up a subgroup where only a select few would need to communicate.
Communities' release could put pressure on other apps that have become popular for private and massive group communications, such as Telegram and Signal, as well as on established messaging services like iMessage and apps made specifically for businesses or educational institutions, such as GroupMe, Band, TalkingPoints, Remind, and others.
WhatsApp stated in a statement that it is "aiming to elevate the bar for how enterprises interact with a degree of privacy and security not found anywhere else," and it emphasized the encryption features of the Communities feature.
It stated that the current choices "demand users to trust apps or software firms with a copy of their messages, and we think they deserve the higher degree of security provided by end-to-end encryption."
There are still worries that communities like this could support organizations that act illegally or dangerously, similar to how Facebook Groups have recently enabled the spread of false information about health and elections, feeding the flames that, for example, led to the January 6 Capitol Riot. WhatsApp claims it will rely on the Community's "name, description, and user reports," among other unencrypted details, to assess whether action is necessary. As a result, the company's methods to prevent such activities seem restricted.
It states that it will ban specific community members and administrators, dissolve the community, or ban everyone from the community if it discovers that a group is being used to disseminate child sex abuse materials, plan violent acts, or engage in human tracking.
Naturally, the firm is still striving to repair its privacy reputation following the outcry over its convoluted policy change from a year ago, which attracted the attention of certain anti-competition authorities and regulatory bodies, including those in the EU and India. Later, WhatsApp clarified its policies further and highlighted that the introduction of Communities would not necessitate a new policy update.
To get early input, communities have been tested with more than 50 organizations across 15 nations. WhatsApp acknowledged in August that the feature had been made available to a select group of testers, but it didn't provide a launch date.
Over the next few months, the feature will gradually roll out to more WhatsApp users, eventually reaching all of them.
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