Community Chat being tested by Meta for Facebook Groups via Messenger

It was announced by Mark Zuckerberg that Meta is testing the new Community Chat for Facebook Groups through Messenger and it’ll be rolled out for everyone to try in the coming weeks.

It might be confusing because the terminology of Community chat is very similar to the Group Chat in Messenger, but to give perspective to it, think of Community Chat as more like Meta’s own version of Discord.

“Most people use feeds to discover content and use messaging for deeper connections. We’re building Community Chats as a new way to connect with people who share your interests. More than 1 billion people use Messenger to communicate with friends, and soon you’ll be able to start Community Chats from Messenger as well as Facebook Groups.” said Mark Zuckerberg

Like Discord, Community Chat is like a collection of channels or group chats with its own rules, members, and topics/names so no need for different single group chats that flood the Messenger App.

An example stated by Meta is to have a Breaking News Category with chats dedicated to important news only.

Vanessa Yaegar, an admin of the Women Who Surf Facebook Group is already trying the Community Chats to have real-time discussions and meet up with its members.

“Admins can choose from several options to help their communities connect. They can start a chat for group members around a specific topic, an event chat for an outing or meetup, a view-only broadcast chat for admins to announce group-wide updates, and an admin-only chat to collaborate with admins and moderators. “ said Meta.

And lastly, there are also Audio Channels where members can share live commentary or interact in real-time with audio.

As reiterated by Meta, Community Chats are for group members only. Facebook is also improving and providing moderation tools to make sure that admins have control over their Community Chats.