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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
World
Christopher Megrath

Whatsapp announces huge new feature 'Communities' rolling out this year

Whatsapp has announced a new feature called 'Communities', allowing users to organise group chats more efficiently.

Scheduled to arrive later this year, Whatsapp announced it will be testing a new feature with a small roll out starting next week. The new feature will give users more control over group chats.

As it stands, group chats are limited to 256 participants and can only be added by knowing someone's phone number. Communities will give admins access to multiple groups, similar to a notice board feature.

READ MORE: Warning issued over WhatsApp scams as people lose thousands of pounds

A select group will let thousands participate in Communities and host multiple sub-group chats. The idea is that various organisations, including schools or a business whose employees communicate on WhatsApp, can more easily organise discussions and have their admins message everyone across different groups.

Whatsapp will also be increasing its security measures as the new feature could potentially lead to users' information leaking. The messaging app is also making it so messages forwarded more than once can only be sent to one group at a time, rather than the previous limit of five.

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