David Bridges
Facebook has indicated that they will start enabling users to start community chats directly from Messenger.
They are also planning to expand the chat experience to more Facebook Groups. Essentially, the Community Chats feature in Messenger will allow users to form a Facebook Group, start chats and audio channels as well as inviting others to join their new group.
According to a statement on the Facebook blog, the Community Chats feature will help users to connect with their communities in real time around the topics that they care about. Users will soon be allowed to start a Community Chat on both Facebook and Messenger with text, audio and video.
The Community Chats experience is expected to blend smoothly with Messenger and Facebook Groups enabling users to connect according to their preferences.
This means that the feature will allow group admins to start a conversation about a topic and get in the moment responses. It will also allow the person who created the chat to organize them in different categories. This will save other group members from having to navigate multiple topics in a single Messenger group chat and help them in finding the most interesting topic. Community Chats will also allow people to connect with their communities on Messenger in addition to friends and family.
People will be able to choose from several options to help their communities connect, including chats for group members around a specific topic, event chats for an outing or meetup, view-only broadcast chats for admins to announce group-wide updates, admin-only chats to collaborate with admins and moderators. Audio channels for up to 30 group members to share live commentary or receive real-time support.
Given the more public nature of Community Chats, Facebook has developed a robust suite of tools to help admins easily manage both chat and audio experiences. This includes, moderation capabilities like blocking, muting or suspending group members, and removing members or messages. Admin Assist, which allows admins to set custom criteria that will automatically suspend users, remove reported messages, and stop messages from ineligible authors or containing violating content from being sent. Members of Community Chats can also report messages to group admins or Meta, block users or leave a chat at any time.
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Maya Kensington
Cameron Steel
