Meta-owned messaging service WhatsApp rolled out “Communities” — a new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups — today.
The feature will bring together separate groups under bigger umbrellas where administrators can send alerts to a community of thousands.
Designed to help organisations, clubs, schools, and other private groups communicate better, this latest feature will allow people to receive updates sent to the entire community and easily organise smaller discussion groups.
Read: WhatsApp services restored after longest reported outage
"Today we're launching Communities on WhatsApp. It makes groups better by enabling sub-groups, multiple threads, announcement channels, and more," Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message today.
“We're also rolling out polls and 32-person video calling too. All are secured by end-to-end encryption so your messages stay private,” Zuckerberg added.
WhatsApp will now allow chat groups to have up to 1,024 users, much higher than the 256 participants restriction it had until recently, according to a company statement.
Read: WhatsApp pushes privacy update to comply with Irish ruling
Telegram and Discord, rivals of WhatsApp, allow thousands of members in group chats.
According to Meta's Twitter handle, WhatsApp's new feature will be available to everyone over the next few months.