WhatsApp adds Communities feature for connecting multiple group chats

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

This week, the concept of group messaging is going to be much bigger.

Since before Facebook bought it, the main focus has been on messaging with people you know. You need someone's phone number to add them, and group chats are capped at 256 participants.

Thousands of people will be able to participate in a Community that hosts multiple sub-group chats when a new tab is rolled out. Various organizations, from a school to a business, can communicate with each other on different platforms, and have their admins message everyone across different groups.

Communities is a response to requests from people who have already been using it for messaging.

Image: WhatsApp

Since Communities could make it easier for information to spread quickly through the app, it is also making it so that messages forwarded more than once can only be sent to one group at a time, rather than the previous limit of five. The move is designed to stop the spread of potentially harmful posts.

There are some key differences between Communities and Telegram channels. Only admins can broadcast to the entire Community in the app, while members are limited to the sub- groups. If someone needs your phone number to add you to a Community, you won't be able to find it through search or recommendation.

Your number will be hidden from admins and people in a specific sub-group. Telegram's name and description are not included in the communications between people in a Community.

While it is announcing the feature now, it is still figuring out how Communities will work based on feedback from early testers who are being invited to try it. He wouldn't be more specific than a community that allows for thousands of members and limits the number of admins.

He says that the use will gravitate towards communities where people have some sort of existing relationships.

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This week, there are a few new features on the messaging service. Group admins will be able to remove messages from a thread for everyone if they are not in a Community. Users will be able to share files up to two gigabytes in size, initiate voice calls with up to 32 people at the same time, and react to a message with a thumbs up.

Even though Communities is being made available slowly in the coming months, it is clearly marking a new chapter for the company.