About a year ago, Facebook introduced Chats in Facebook Groups. Now, Facebook has announced that as of August 16th, you will no longer be able to initiate these Group Chats. And as of August 22nd, all of those conversations will become read-only and will not allow any additional messages. What is the reason for this change? Keep reading to learn more about the removal of Chats in Facebook Groups.
Facebook Group Chats
Facebook initially introduced these Group Chats in 2018 so group members could have real-time conversations and discussions with others in the group. This feature included admin-specific controls such as: To allow any member to create a chat or only admins, restricting chat size to 250 people, to remove members and close chat. It was no secret that these chats could become all-consuming and chaotic with so many people having a discussion in one place.
Farewell, Group Chats
Now, Facebook has made the decision to remove this feature from its platform. As of August 22nd, all current members of a group chat will be able to view the conversation history and search through the content. In addition, you will no longer be able to send messages or add new people to the chat. However, you can start your own chat with those users who you are friends with or are connected to on Messenger. So if you wanted to manually start a new group chat with select individuals, you will be able to do so on your own.
Facebook stated that its “current product infrastructure doesn’t support Chats in Groups directly in the Facebook app,” and “can no longer support the feature.” With up to 250 members in a chat, it would become almost impossible to keep up with the content of the chat, making it incredibly difficult to contribute and hold a conversation. (Not to mention the amount of notifications people were getting.)
An Eye to the Future
Facebook stated that they believe having real-time communication for group members is an important aspect of Groups. That being said, they are exploring new features in order to support that. We aren't sure if they have any new tools or features ready to be tested at this time. What do you think of this change? Does the removal of this feature affect you or your groups? Let us know by commenting on our post.
Happy Hunting!
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