WhatsApp officially rolls out its group chat Communities feature

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After months of testing, WhatsApp is finally launching its Communities feature, where users can join dedicated groups centered around specific topics.

WhatsApp revealed the new feature and began internal testing back in April. Now Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, is rolling out the feature to everyone.

Like Facebook Groups, you’ll start WhatsApp Communities around a general topic. Think of non-profit organizations, schools, local clubs, and so on.

Any group with a real-world connection could benefit from creating and joining a Community.

The key difference is the real-world connection. While Facebook Groups are generally discoverable and can be made up of users from all walks of life, Communities are slightly different.

To join a Community, you have to get an invite. And for someone to invite you, they’ll have to know your phone number since that’s how people identify you on WhatsApp.

Plus, WhatsApp Community chats remain end-to-end encrypted so that you can maintain a certain level of privacy.

A WhatsApp Community will have a central meeting group but can also have several different subgroups.

For example, a non-profit organization could have a WhatsApp Community and inside of that community is a dedicated group for board members.

Communities will allow for file sharing of up to two gigabytes, allowing members to share even more necessary information. And a Community can have up to 1,024 members.

WhatsApp Communities is rolling out to users starting today. If you don’t see the feature immediately, don’t worry.

These features tend to roll out gradually, and most users should see it popping up over the next few days.

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