WhatsApp creates a tool for communities and reactions with emojis – companies

WhatsApp has created a new tool, “Communities,” which will allow group admins to communicate with a large number of people, while users will soon be able to reply with “emojis” to messages, Meta revealed Thursday.

These communities will bring existing groups together, such as groups of parents from different classes of the same school, or from street residents who actually participate in several groups in a particular neighborhood.

“This way, users will be able to receive updates sent to the entire community and easily organize small discussion groups. The communities also include new advanced tools for administrators, including announcement messages that are sent to all users and controlling which groups are included,” he highlights. On the social network in a statement. Only administrators will be able to send messages, while other participants will only be able to reply to them with “emojis”.

This new functionality, which must be tested for two months before it can be published internationally, evokes social network “channels” Telegram, another messaging system, used to broadcast messages to a large audience, publicly, on open channels. For all, or private, by invitation.

But the “emojis” will be available to everyone, “so that users can share their opinions without flooding conversations with new messages.”

New features that will be implemented in the coming weeks also include increased file sharing up to 2GB [dois gigabytes] And voice calls with more users, it is now possible to call up to 32 people simultaneously.

“We believe these improvements will help users find new ways to share conversations and reduce the burden of conversations with more users.”

WhatsApp, which exceeded two billion users around the world in February 2020, also insists on measures taken to curb some abuses, such as widespread disinformation or harassment.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook or Instagram, has faced a lot of criticism about these issues in its social networks, but also in its messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger, where they are difficult to solve, since the exchanges are private and encrypted, at least in the case of WhatsApp.

Administrators will also have the ability to delete problematic messages in groups and content can only be moved to one group at a time to avoid the “spam” phenomenon.

On WhatsApp, groups are limited to 256 people and communities will initially be limited to a few thousand users.

This new tool can also be used for business.

“If a restaurant wants to form a group to share its menu or send out promotions, it can do so,” said Jyoti Sood, WhatsApp Product Manager, before specifying that Meta does not plan to “charge” community management.