WhatsApp, until now renowned for protecting the confidentiality of its users’ conversations, is to introduce “channels” that will enable organizations to communicate publicly with a large number of subscribers.
The Meta subsidiary announced in an online statement on Thursday the launch of WhatsApp Channels as a simple, reliable, and private way of receiving important news from individuals and organizations.
This new feature, which allows users to find the channels that interest them in a separate tab called ” Actus “, will first be tested in Singapore and Colombia, before being rolled out in other countries.
For their part, channel administrators will not be able to add subscribers. They will communicate “one way”, sending messages, photos, videos, stickers, and polls.
Among the organizations partnering with the new service, Meta said they were the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the FC Barcelona and Manchester United football teams.
The social networking giant has had a difficult 2022, with the first decline in advertising revenues since its IPO in 2012. As a result, the channels will enable it to offer brands a new way of communicating with consumers.
In terms of security and confidentiality, subscribers will not see the telephone numbers of other members of the audience, and their choice of channels will be private. Published content will disappear after 30 days.
“As the aim of the channels is to reach a large audience, they will not be encrypted by default, as private conversations are, the company added.
Meta nevertheless plans to offer end-to-end encryption of channels in certain cases, for non-profit or health associations for example, since this type of encryption guarantees that messages can only be read by the sender and the recipient.