WhatsApp Launches Channels Feature for Following Favorite Accounts – CNN Indonesia

CNN Indonesia

Monday, 12 Jun 2023 10:00 WIB

Jakarta, CNNIndonesia —

WhatsApp launched a new feature called Channels which allows users to follow account specific topics or areas of interest.

“Today we’re excited to introduce Channels: a simple, reliable and private way to receive important updates from people and organizations, right within WhatsApp. We created Channels in a new tab called Updates – where you’ll find Status and channels you choose to follow – separate from your chats with family, friends and the community,” he wrote WhatsApp on his blog page on Thursday (8/6).

Channels is billed as a “one-way broadcast tool for admins to post text, photos, videos, stickers, and polls.”

To make it easier for users to find Channels, WhatsApp created a search field to find various accounts such as hobby accounts, sports teams, the latest news from local officials, and others.

In addition, users can also enter a channel from an invite link sent in a chat, email, or posted online.

WhatsApp is said to want to present channels as a private communication space. Therefore, they protect the personal information of admins and followers.

Channel admins don’t show their phone number and profile photo to followers. The same applies to channel followers, WhatsApp will not reveal their phone number to admins or other followers.

“Similar to how we build messaging, we don’t believe that channel updates should last forever. So we will only store channel history on our servers for up to 30 days and we will add a way to make updates disappear faster from follower devices,” explained WhatsApp.

Furthermore, WhatsApp also said that channel admins will have the option to block screenshot and forward capabilities from their channels.

Apart from that, WhatsApp will also give admins the ability to decide who can follow their channels and whether they want their channels to be discoverable in the directory or not.

Since the purpose of channels is to reach a broad audience and channels are not end-to-end encrypted by default, WhatsApp is considering the option of end-to-end encrypted channels for limited audiences, such as nonprofits or healthcare.

WhatsApp will launch its first channels for organizations in Colombia and Singapore to build, learn and adapt user experiences.

This feature will be available to users in many countries in the coming months.

(lom/lth)