WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms, announced on Thursday that it is globally rolling out a feature called Communities to organise various chat groups into larger structures, as well as other features like larger group video calls and in-chat polls.
Reuters reported that the Communities feature will bring together various chat groups under larger umbrellas where administrators will be able to send alerts to a community of thousands – a feature that workplaces or schools could use.
According to a company statement, the app will now allow chat groups to have up to 1,024 users, up from the previous limit of 256 participants.
Telegram and Discord, two WhatsApp competitors, allow thousands of members in group chats.
Other new features include 32-person video calling and in-chat polls, which are common on social media apps such as Meta’s Facebook and Twitter.