WhatsApp said that they plan to transform the service into a social network by introducing a feature to unite in groups of similar interests.

“We had the idea of a new feature – WhatsApp communities. They allow users to combine individual groups under one roof and manage them more efficiently. This way, you can get updates sent out to the whole community and easily follow group discussions. Admins will also have more options in communities. They will be able to send announcements to everyone and decide which groups to add to the community,” the messenger said in a post on its website.

The developers said the community feature will support end-to-end encryption. For now, they will not add the ability to search and discover new communities and will limit forwarding messages to discourage the spread of fake information in groups.