The WhatsApp development team has formally announced the launch of Communities and a slew of other news (including comments) for groups within the popular messaging app, following months of development.

These capabilities, which first emerged in several versions of WhatsApp Beta, are now available in the stable version of the app: the WhatsApp team exposes the secrets of the Communities and other upcoming news in a post on the official blog.

How did the concept of WhatsApp Communities come to be? 

WhatsApp has been built and developed from the beginning to provide its users with a communication system that does not make them regret being present in conversations with strangers, friends, and relatives. Since the tragic start of the epidemic, distance communication technologies have faced numerous challenges, both in terms of resources and services provided.

The WhatsApp team did not stand by and, listening to the feedback from organizations such as schools, local associations and non-profit organizations that rely on WhatsApp as a means of communication, they thought of the Communities to simplify the management of the conversation between these types. of groups.

Community, on the other hand, was created to be useful and assist “groups in everyday life” rather than focusing on functionality with no limit on the number of people. The feature is currently in its early stages and will be improved over time to fit the demands of users, whose input will be crucial.

How communities work and what their potential is

In general, the WhatsApp Communities will allow users to create “groups of groups”, aggregating several separate groups into a single large group, choosing the structure that suits them best. Each Community will have a description and a list of groups that users can choose to join.

Users who are part of a Community will be able to receive updates sent to the entire community and create smaller discussion groups, perhaps specific to a particular topic.

Community administrators will have particular and specific tools, including the ability to send alerts to all members or only to members of some particular groups.

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“ In our opinion, Community will allow school principals to communicate more easily with parents by sending out circulars to read and setting up groups according to specific classes, extra-curricular activities or volunteer needs.

Communities are private by nature, which is why we will continue to protect messages with end-to-end encryption. This technology has never been more necessary to safeguard the privacy and safety of users. The most close-knit groups (schools, members of a religious congregation, or even companies) want and must be able to have safe and private conversations without WhatsApp checking every word. “

News also for all WhatsApp groups:

WhatsApp is also about to release a whole series of improvements regarding groups, both internal and external to the Communities. In order for users to become familiar with the new tools for groups, they will be introduced even before the Communities.

Specifically, these are four new features, all seen in various versions of WhatsApp Beta, both for Android and iOS, and ready for release on a global scale:

Reactions:

We have told you about them in all sorts of ways and it finally seems that they are officially arriving for everyone (but work is already underway to enrich the functionality ): reactions will allow users of a group to share their opinion on a message by leaving an emoji (Like, Heart, Laughter, Surprise, Sadness and Gratitude).

Chat moderation:

Group administrators will have the option to remove messages from within the chat.

Sharing files up to 2 GB:

Although the hopes of the arrival of this feature were not too high, given that the test was limited to a few Argentine beta testers, on WhatsApp, it will soon be possible to share multimedia files up to 2 GB. The target? “Encourage collaboration on projects”.

Voice calls up to 32 participants:

Voice calls can be made with up to 32 participants; in addition, redesigned graphics will be introduced.

Community: new feature, usual security, and privacy

The WhatsApp team also underlined how it is essential to guarantee the privacy and security of those who use their messaging app, also and above all with the arrival of the new Communities. In fact, a whole series of tools have been introduced, for administrators and users, in order to always guarantee a high level of security and privacy, and to reduce misinformation and incorrect and unpleasant behavior.

Tools for administrators:

In addition to the above, administrators will be able to exclude groups or individual users from a Community, as well as delete inappropriate messages or content. To do this, they will have specific resources at their disposal.

Tools for users:

Users will also be able to do their part, reporting misuse, blocking unwanted accounts, or voluntarily abandoning a particular Community. In addition, the “who can add me to groups” setting will also be extended to the Communities.

Various limits for communities:

WhatsApp is not a social media and it will not be possible to search for new communities. In order to avoid chaos and overload, the general notice board of the Community will be viewable by all but only administrators will be able to interact with it and publish content. Users will be able to chat in smaller groups which, however, will need to be created or approved by the administrators.

Limit the forwarding of messages against disinformation:

The confidentiality of conversations and the fight against disinformation are very important. For this purpose, message forwarding is restricted: messages that have already been forwarded can only be sent to one group at a time, unlike the five groups to which they can currently be forwarded.

End-to-end encryption and phone number privacy:

All messages within communities will also be protected by end-to-end encryption. In addition, the phone number of the members of a community will always be hidden: it will only be visible to the administrators and participants of the groups they belong to.

Interventions against offensive communities:

In the case of communities that engage in illegal activities, such as the dissemination of child pornography or the coordination of violent actions, WhatsApp will block all members or administrators of the community.

For more information, we invite you to consult the dedicated post on the official WhatsApp blog.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE NEW BETA VERSION OF THE APP:

If you want to try the latest version of WhatsApp Beta for smartphones based on the Google mobile operating system, you have the possibility to do it through the Google Play Store, by subscribing to the beta testing channel (you can find the page dedicated to this program by following this link).

Those who have not managed to sign up for the beta program but would like to try this version of the messaging app in a preview can do so by manually installing the relative APK file, which can be downloaded from APK Mirror (find the dedicated page by following this link).

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