What you need to know
- WhatsApp is introducing a couple of new features that make it easier for admins to manage groups.
- Admins will be able to control who can join their groups more easily.
- WhatsApp is also making it easier for users to see which groups they share with someone.
WhatsApp is making it a lot easier to control who can and cannot join a group chat as part of a bunch of features rolling out to the messaging platform.
One of the updates allows admins to approve or deny requests to join their groups in a single location. So, when someone tries to join their group from an invite link or a community, admins have a more proactive control of their group privacy.
This new capability is tied to WhatsApp's Community tab, which was launched in early 2022 to help users bring together multiple group chats under one roof. More importantly, that feature was aimed squarely at many of the best messaging apps that allow large collections of people to connect with each other in shared communities, like Slack and Discord.
"As more people join communities, we want to give group admins more control over their group privacy, so we’ve built a simple tool that gives admins the ability to decide who is able to join a group," WhatsApp said in a blog post. "Groups are where people have some of their most intimate conversations, and it’s important that admins are able to easily decide who can and cannot come in."
Prior to this change, admins were forced to only share group invitation links with users they trusted. Otherwise, anyone with access to the URL could hop in on the group uninvited.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is providing users with a quick way to discover which groups they share with a contact. So, the next time you want to make sure you're in the right group with all of your coworkers, simply search their names to see all of your shared groups.
WhatsApp says these changes are making their way to everyone over the coming weeks.
