WhatsApp Communities is finally rolling out, beta first

After the emoji reactions, we can now expect the Communities in WhatsApp soon. The feature was officially announced in April and is now limited in WhatsApp Beta.

What are WhatsApp Communities?

The WhatsApp Communities are very similar to the groups already found in the chat app, but the Communities are different. You can better describe them as subgroups with group managers or moderators. Those members have more rights in such a subgroup and can, for example, delete messages from the group. Administrators can create a Community and also start groups within the Community again. In addition, communities are not public. Only administrators can invite people to join.

Examples of Communities

• For example, with Communities, a school principal can bring all parents together in one place to share important news and create groups about specific classes, extracurricular activities, or volunteer needs.
• As a football team you can create multiple Communities, for example there would be a separate chat group for the players, one for the board of directors and the technical staff. The trainers sit together in a chat group with the players as well as with the technical staff.

Where can the Communities in WhatsApp be found?

The Communities in WhatsApp are not yet available to everyone. However, the first users of WhatsApp Beta (version 2.22.19.3) can already get started with it. WABetaInfo shared a screenshot of the new feature. The Communities can be found at the top left of the chat app, where the camera icon is.

If you already see the Communities, you can already start creating a community by adding up to 10 groups: these groups are called ‘subgroups’ and they support a maximum of 512 participants. A community member can choose which subgroup to join based on their personal preferences and they can leave a subgroup without leaving a community. Community admins can also disable a community if they no longer want to use it, and other members can report the community to WhatsApp if it violates their terms.

After creating a community, a new group is automatically created by WhatsApp: this is the announcement group. This group allows community administrators to send messages that are always visible to all members of the community.

Do you already see the Communities in WhatsApp Beta? Let us know in the comments.