Everything WhatsApp announced today: Communities, in-chat polls, and more

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta has announced four new WhatsApp features. As per the company, Communities on WhatsApp will start rolling out to users globally today and will be available to everyone over the next few months.

The Communities feature of WhatsApp is a major update to how users can connect on WhatsApp in the groups. Communities like neighborhoods, parents at a school, and workplaces can now connect multiple groups together under one umbrella to organise group conversations on WhatsApp, states the messaging platform.

WhatsApp explains that ‘Communities on WhatsApp’ are close-knit groups that need more tools to organise and manage their conversations and these kinds of groups typically have a connection where people know one another, organised around a common place or interest.

As per WhatsApp, admins are responsible for creating and managing Communities on WhatsApp. Moreover, admins 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. Additionally, group admins will be able to delete inappropriate or abusive chats or media for all members of a group,” says WhatsApp.

WhatsApp users can control their interactions within the Communities. The existing settings of the messaging app allows users to decide who can add them to a group – and these settings will also apply to Communities.

The messaging platform has also released three more features, which are the ability to create in-chat polls, 32-person video calling, and groups with up to 1024 users. Similar to the emoji reactions, larger file sharing, and admin delete, these features can be used in any group and will also be particularly helpful for Communities, says WhatsApp.