Meta has quietly begun rolling out the Communities feature on Messenger, according to a report from TechCrunch. The Communities feature allows 5,000 people to join through shareable invites; inside, you can participate in group chats and view the Home feed, where admins can share updates and announcements.
According to TechCrunch, Meta rolled out Community Chats on Messenger two years ago for people in Facebook Groups to connect, but with Communities, you no longer need to be in a Facebook Group to join.
With Communities, organisations, schools, and even neighbourhoods can stay connected and updated on the latest developments that concern them. They could also be used to connect people who share a hobby, and the possibilities are endless.
The Help page notes that chats in Communities follow different privacy guidelines for your private messages. The company said:
“Since communities on Messenger are designed for more public conversations, they do not follow the same privacy guidelines as your personal messages on Messenger, and instead follow similar privacy guidelines as community chats associated with Facebook groups. For example, keep in mind that all current and future members of your community can see chat content and that Meta reviews content against our Community Standards.”
As mentioned before, this feature is still rolling out to users, so you may not be able to access it yet. If the feature is available for you, you will see an option to create a new community in the left menu of your Messenger mobile app.
The move by Meta to launch community groups that are isolated from Facebook just shows the direction in which Messenger is going to become a stand-alone app. Similarly, Meta recently added the Highlights tab, which lets you see your friend’s Facebook posts and like and comment on them right from Messenger, making the app a bit more self-contained.
Source: Meta via TechCrunch