WhatsApp seemingly working on ‘Communities’ feature that could change how groups work

Andrew Griffin
Monday 08 November 2021 12:06 EST
Comments
(AFP via Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

WhatsApp appears to be working on a “communities” feature that would change the way groups work.

The feature is still in development and is yet to be confirmed by WhatsApp. But it has been spotted by the site XDA Developers and now seems to be confirmed by WABetaInfo, which has a track record of finding WhatsApp features before they are publicly released.

The communities feature appears to be something like a group of groups: admins could create a community of students on a course, for instance, and then each class might have its own group under that name.

That is similar to how Discord works. Users are able to join a server and then will see a variety of channels, each of which might be devoted to specific things.

Admins will be able to control those communities, and share links with others that will allow them to join.

The feature is still far from confirmed. While it appears to be under development in current beta versions of WhatsApp, it might be changed significantly before it is released, or never released at all.

WhatsApp rivals such as Telegram have also been focusing on groups, which can be used something like private, controlled social networks to broadcast information to a number of people.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in