Meta Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, on Thursday, June 8, announced a new feature on WhatsApp titled Channels that allows users to follow people and organizations that matter to them privately.
In a statement, Zuckerberg stated that the one-way broadcast tool allowed admins to send text, photos, videos, stickers and polls.
The new feature allows admins to block screenshots and forwards, ensuring that what’s in the channel stays there.
Further, the admins' information is hidden, and the application only stores 30 days of a channel's history to enhance privacy. WhatsApp promised to ensure the updates disappear quicker from a follower's device.
The admins will also decide who can follow their channel and whether they want it to be discoverable.
"As a channel admin, your phone number and profile photo won’t be shown to followers. Likewise, following a channel won’t reveal your phone number to the admin or other followers. Who you decide to follow is your choice and it’s private," the statement read in part.
Further, the new feature will allow users to earn from their craft by assisting them in building a business around their channel.
This would be by expanding payment services as well as the ability to promote certain channels in the directory to help increase awareness.
"Building channels is a big step our users have asked us to take for years. We think the time is finally right to introduce a simple, reliable, and private broadcast tool and we hope you enjoy using it in the months and years to come," the statement read in part.
The new feature was launched in Singapore and Columbia and will be rolled out in other countries in the coming weeks.
Meta has been introducing new features to improve the overall user experience. Recently, WhatsApp introduced an edit feature allowing users to edit a text message within a 15-minute window.
"The edited messages will display ‘edited’ alongside them, so those you’re messaging are aware of the correction without showing edit history.
"As with all personal messages, media and calls, your messages and the edits you make are protected by end-to-end encryption," read Zuckerberg's message dated May 22, 2023.
