Instant messaging firm WhatsApp today announced a major update to help its users "connect in the groups that matter to them". The global rollout of the Communities feature will allow users to have multiple groups together under one roof and let them organise group conversations on the platform with the "level of privacy and security not found anywhere else", it said.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Meta, announced the global rollout of Communities on WhatsApp on Thursday.
"Today we're launching Communities on WhatsApp. It makes groups better by enabling sub-groups, multiple threads, announcement channels, and more. We're also rolling out polls and 32 person video calling too. All secured by end to end encryption so your messages stay private," he said.
The feature will allow users to have separate groups under one "Community" to organise group conversations on the Meta-owned instant messaging service.
"To get started, users can tap on the new communities tab at the top of their chats on Android and at the bottom on iOS. From there, users will be able to start a new Community from scratch or add existing groups. Once in a community, users can easily switch between available groups to get the information you need, when they need it, and admins can send important updates to everyone in the Community," it said.
"With Communities, we're aiming to raise the bar for how organizations communicate with a level of privacy and security not found anywhere else. 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," WhatsApp said in a statement.
The Instant messaging firm also released three new features - in-chat polls, 32 person video calling, and groups with up to 1024 users - for its users today. "Just like emoji reactions, larger file sharing, and admin delete, these features can be used in any group but will be particularly helpful for Communities," the US-based firm said.
The company added that it has been working with over 50 organizations in 15 countries to build Communities to meet their needs, adding that the feedback so far has been encouraging.
Recently, WhatsApp - which has a userbase of 2 billion users of which majority are from India - was down for users across the globe for close to an hour, making it its biggest-ever outage. In India, WhatsApp users in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata were impacted by the disruption.
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