Months after announcing it as a major move, WhatsApp is finally rolling out the Communities feature to select beta testers.
WhatsApp users running on v2.22.19 can see the new Communities tab set in place of Camera roll, letting them make upto 10 subgroups with upto 512 participants. Anyone existing in a Community can join the listed subgroups as per their wish and also leave accordingly.
Communities in WhatsApp
In April this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that WhatsApp would soon have a new group feature called Communities. Under this, a group admin can create multiple subgroups for various topics, thereby keeping the talk clear and limited to whoever is needed.
And months after testing, it’s now rolling out to select users in WhatsApp beta v2.22.19.3, as noted by WABetaInfo. Zuckerberg mentioned it as a “major evolution of WhatsApp“, and it could truly be. Users who have updated their clients to this version should see the new Communities tab appearing in place of the Camera roll.
If not, close and relaunch the app to see. And if you still can’t see it, hold until WhatsApp rolls it for everyone evenly. To those it’s available, you can start creating upto 10 subgroups under one Community, with upto 512 participants.
Once a dedicated Community is created, WhatsApp will automatically make an announcement group for the admins – through which they can pass any updates to all the members in subgroups at a time. While admins have the power to disable a Community whenever they want, participants too have their own rights.
They can join or leave any sub-group in a Community based on their interest. WhatsApp is also working on the ability to hide the numbers of sub-group members from other participants, which is good for privacy reasons. But it’s not active yet.
While we wait to see all of these being properly functioning soon, those who’re able to see the Communities tab can start experiencing this right away, and tell us below how it is.
