WATCH: WhatsApp Communities now available

WhatsApp has officially launched Communities, the new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups that first entered into testing earlier this year.

The announcement was made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg 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.”

Better communication

Communities is designed to help organisations, clubs, schools, and other private groups better communicate and stay organised.

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It also brings a number of new features to the messaging platform, including admin controls, support for sub-groups and announcement groups, 32-person voice and video calls, larger file sharing, emoji reactions and polls.

Features

Communities themselves can support groups of up to 1 024 users and offer end-to-end encryption.

Some of the features developed for Communities, like emoji reactions, large file sharing (up to 2GB) and the ability for admins to delete messages, had already made their way to the WhatsApp platform ahead of today’s launch.

Now, the company says polls, 32-person video calls, and larger group sizes will also be supported on WhatsApp more broadly outside of Communities.

Zuckerberg said communities makes groups better by enabling sub-groups, multiple threads, announcement channels, and more.

WhatsApp evolution

“This is a major evolution for WhatsApp and it’s something that I’ve been really focused on for the last year.”

“If you think about all the activities that you do and people you connect with throughout the day, it reflects the different kinds of relationship people have, not just with our loved one but based on our activities and work too,” Zuckerberg said.

Communities are structured with one main announcement group which alerts every one of the most important messages.

However, members can only chat in small sub-groups the admin has approved. This can keep members from being bombarded with messages about group happenings and events they’re not connected to.

Watch Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of the the Communities feature on WhatsApp

No WhatsApp support for old phones

Meanwhile, very old smartphones will no longer receive support from WhatsApp as the platform rolls out new features and updates.

The company told The Citizen it currently provides support for and recommended using the following devices:

• Android running OS 4.1 and newer

• Apple iPhones running iOS 12 and newer

• KaiOS 2.5.0 and newer, including JioPhone and JioPhone 2

“Once you have one of these devices, install WhatsApp and register your phone number,” WhatsApp said.

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