WhatsApp to get Communities! Mark Zuckerberg announces next big thing for Meta

WhatsApp Communities is happening! In the latest big update to WhatsApp, the messenger app from Meta will be getting the Communities feature this year and the idea is simple – to let users form their own communities. Don’t confuse this with the WhatsApp Group that you have been experiencing since years. The feature has just been announced by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and could be the next big thing for Meta Platforms.

“Communities like neighborhoods, parents at a school, and workplaces can now connect multiple groups together under one umbrella to organize group conversations on WhatsApp,” describes WhatsApp. The idea behind this is to help with group conversations all the while keeping it safe.

WhatsApp Communities comes to us

With Communities, WhatsApp is also ensuring that the organisations can communicate with a lever of privacy and security that no other alternative offers at the moment. The end-to-end encryption applies on Communities and will help users keep their chats and all conversations safe.

“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,” says WhatsApp.

Additionally, group admins get more power over these communities. “Admins are responsible for creating and managing Communities on WhatsApp. They can choose which groups become part of their Community by forming new groups or by linking pre-existing groups. Community admins will also have the ability to unlink groups from the Community and remove individual members from the Community entirely. In addition, group admins will be able to delete inappropriate or abusive chats or media for all members of a group,” says the blog.

Other than the WhatsApp Communities, there are several new features coming to the messenger app. Users will now be able to:

- create polls within chats

- a video calling hosting 32 people

- group formation with up to 1024 users

Note that all of these features will be accessible to the WhatsApp Communities, along with the ability to send emoji reactions, larger file sharing and admin delete.