WhatsApp has announced the arrival of its new section called Channels, which will be available in Europe in the coming months. This is one of the most anticipated functions, since it is a feature that Telegram has successfully integrated for years and that many users have waited in the Meta messaging app.
The great virtue of this new section of the application is that it allows everyone track organizations, people, or issues that interest you the most to find out about their latest publications. This is a one-way communication, so there are no messages from other people that could interfere. This format gives you a new dimension to WhatsApp, and given its great acceptance in Europe, it can become an excellent alternative to Twitter, at least in its informative facet.
After all, it can be used to receive first-hand publications from football clubs, digital media, weather services and other information providers, but also from individuals. WhatsApp’s potential would be complemented by an emerging alternative, codenamed Project92, which would complement its other apps such as Facebook and Instagram. In this way, Mark Zuckerberg wants to shut down Elon Musk’s social network on all possible fronts.
Information without noise
The changes that have been made in Twitter recently respond to an intention to obtain more advantages. some like him shadow ban to links to competing services or the end of compatibility with third-party applications are impoverishing the experience on the social networkand Meta can take advantage of it.
New WhatsApp channels look like feed of a Twitter profile, but almost completely reducing the interaction. That’s to say, you can see what the owner of each channel is posting, but you cannot comment, repost, or view other users’ comments. The only way to participate is through polls which can be created by channel admins.
It takes away the social component, and given the tension that usually exists on Elon Musk’s platform, it may even be positive. Information and content arrives noiselessly, directly from the channel owner to all members. When you follow a channel, no one’s phone number or contact is shared, so no one can contact a user because they belong to a specific channel.
So to speak, channels are a list of posts where you can only read what the creator puts. But it’s not stored forever, rather Only messages from the last 30 days will be saved. Thus, the company ensures that the content displayed when joining a channel is recent.
WhatsApp does not want inactive channels in which when a user joins, they see that the last post is from months ago. This is true on Twitter, with some accounts that can have thousands of followers, but post very infrequently.
freedom to create
As confirmed by the company, any user can create their own channel. This democratizes the function and brings it closer to Twitter. Not only will it be available for organizations like the Business version, but an anonymous person can create their own channel for their acquaintances to follow.
Surely it will be possible choose channel privacy so not everyone can join. This is something that also happens in Telegram, and it makes sense, since not all channels have to be in the public domain. For example, if a non-professional football team decides to create a channel to inform their players and supporters of matches and times, they can filter who is joining and who is not participating so that no one is left out.
Administrators of each channel will be able to view and limit the forward messages or take screenshots. In the case of those that are private, this can be very useful to see if anyone shares the information shared there. The content that can be uploaded to WhatsApp channels is similar to that of any social network, with photos, videos, text, voice notes, stickers and even polls.
It remains to be seen if Meta will perform some sort of verification of official channels. to distinguish them from channels created by individuals. After all, without this type of verification, anyone can create a channel with the same content and profile picture as an official channel to try to impersonate it or create a bad image. This is precisely what is happening on Twitter with the purchase of verifications by individuals.
real alternative
WhatsApp will not become Twitterbut it may encourage users of this platform to follow media, football teams, companies or even influencersthey can do it from the messaging app for quick access.
However, it does not compete in the social section and has no intention of doing so, since the company has stated that what you want with these channels is to open up a fast path of information. For this reason, it will not filter end-to-end channels, although it will add security features.
In the messaging app there is no algorithm that recommends the content, but all channels will be listed in their section. Each user will be able to follow those they want and access a list with all of them from the Channels section.
However, anyone looking to interact with the posts by commenting, liking or sharing them should continue to turn to Twitter or other similar social networks like Mastodon.
You may be interested
Follow the topics that interest you
Table of Contents
