WhatsApp rolls out ‘Communities’ with end-to-end encryption: All details

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta has announced that the Communities on WhatsApp feature rolls out today. According to the company, the Communities feature is a major update to how people will be able to 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.

What is the ‘WhatsApp Community’ feature?

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.

According to WhatsApp, “At the center of every Community on WhatsApp is a description and menu of groups that people can choose to join. This provides a structure and organisation to conversations among larger and more complex groups that allow people to focus on what matters to them. We are building a number of updates to provide private, safe, and secure ways for these groups to communicate on WhatsApp with the following principles as our guide.”

Control for admins

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.

Control for users

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. According to WhatsApp, users will also be able to easily report abuse, block accounts, and leave Communities they no longer want to be a part of. WhatsApp says that the company is also adding the ability to silently leave a group, so everyone in a group is not notified in case people decide the conversation is no longer for them.