WhatsApp Seemingly Working on ‘Community’ Feature to Rival Discord

WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature dubbed ‘Community’ to streamline group chats. First spotted by XDA Developer and now spotted by WABetaInfo, this feature is basically a new place where group admins have more control over groups on WhatsApp. Admins can create ‘communities’ within groups to manage the flow of information. It is similar to Community on the popular chat app Discord. Once a server (or groups on WhatsApp) is created, the admin can form a community, and members can join through personal invites sent via text/email or clickable links. WABeta notes that WhatsApp is testing a similar approach but how the final version may look remains unclear.

The publication notes that the WhatsApp Community still appears to be a private chat room with end-to-end encryption. One screenshot also highlights the Community icon or display inside a squared box inside of a circle. It is further explained, “Admins can send messages in this group chat and they will be able to group some groups related to the community: for example, a degree course can be considered a community, and all its teaching classes are groups included in this community.” The WhatsApp Community will reportedly offer some tools to admins to better manage all groups but, the Meta (formerly Facebook)-owned messaging app may bring changes. WhatsApp is yet to roll out the feature to Android and iOS beta testers. That being said, the stable rollout of Community can take months.