WhatsApp reactions to start rolling out on Thursday

FILE - In this file photo taken on November 6, 2020, a user updates Facebook's WhatsApp application on his cellphone in Mumbai. File photo: Indranil MUKHERJEE / AFP

FILE - In this file photo taken on November 6, 2020, a user updates Facebook's WhatsApp application on his cellphone in Mumbai. File photo: Indranil MUKHERJEE / AFP

Published May 5, 2022

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Cape Town: Messaging app WhatsApp will begin rolling out reactions to messages in chats on Thursday, founder Mark Zuckerberg announced.

“Reactions on WhatsApp start rolling out today,” he wrote on Facebook with a stream of emoticons including a heart, the laughing emoji, crying emoji and the thumbs-up emoji.

“We're including 🙏 to help spread thanks and appreciation. More expressions coming soon,” Zuckerberg commented on his post.

In April, WhatsApp said on its blog that “emoji reactions are coming to WhatsApp so people can quickly share their opinion without flooding chats with new messages”.

Reactions are apart of a sleuth of new features WhatsApp announced would be released in 2022, including bigger group voice calls and a new feature called Communities.

Users could, from May, add 32 people on one group voice call.

“Pro-tip: Now you can put 32 of your favourite people in ONE voice call. Sharing good news with your whole family means hearing all the joy and laughter in one easy call,” the social media account tweeted on May 3.

With Communities, users are able to bring related groups together in a way that “helps you organise meaningful connections easily and privately”. it said.

On April 14, WhatsApp said that since its launch in 2009, it has been focused on helping people have the best experience when chatting to an individual or a group of friends or family.

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"Communities on WhatsApp will enable people to bring together separate groups under one umbrella with a structure that works for them,” WhatsApp said.

“That way people can receive updates sent to the entire Community and easily organise smaller discussion groups on what matters to them,” it wrote at the time.

“Communities will also contain powerful new tools for admins, including announcement messages that are sent to everyone and control over which groups can be included.”

PHOTO: Supplied/WhatsApp Blog

Other features announced at the time include group admins being able to remove errant or problematic messages from everyone’s chats, file sharing increasing to support files up to 2 gigabytes and the larger voice calls.

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