This might not be an amusing news for Facebook users as the Social Networking Company is shutting down its Chat feature in Groups on August 22nd. The feature being referenced here is the one inside Facebook groups, and not the group chats created through Messenger.
Details regarding the sudden change were announced on Facebook’s community blog.
The chat feature for Facebook Groups was introduced last year with the sole purpose of allowing Group members to communicate with each other in real-time. However, the option to start a Messenger chat in a Group was taken away on August 16th and rest of the shutting down process will be completed by the 22nd, as mentioned above.
After Thursday, the current chats in groups will be archived and become read-only. These chats will not be phased out completely though as members would still be able to search for the chat in Messenger and read the conversation history. The options to write a new message and add a participant to the Chat will no longer exist unfortunately.
Facebook explained that it realizes the importance of being able to have real-time communications, something that the chat feature in groups allowed. However, the existing infrastructure of the product doesn’t let the feature to be incorporated in the Facebook application.
It should be noted however that Group Chats in Messenger shall not be affected by this move and users will still be able to start a group chat with whoever they are connected to on Messenger.
On August 22nd, the Chats in Facebook Groups will give an impression that all participants have left the conversation. However, this will be only be a part of those chats getting archived.
Users have mixed feelings about the feature going away. While it had its pros such as easily being able to get in touch with fellow group members, many users claimed that they were annoyed by getting added to random group chats.
Facebook claims that it is looking for new ways to enable real-time communication for Groups but have no plans or details to share as of now. Stay tuned for any further developments in this story.
Read next: Facebook’s new changes will remove discrimination from housing, employing, and credit ads
Details regarding the sudden change were announced on Facebook’s community blog.
The chat feature for Facebook Groups was introduced last year with the sole purpose of allowing Group members to communicate with each other in real-time. However, the option to start a Messenger chat in a Group was taken away on August 16th and rest of the shutting down process will be completed by the 22nd, as mentioned above.
After Thursday, the current chats in groups will be archived and become read-only. These chats will not be phased out completely though as members would still be able to search for the chat in Messenger and read the conversation history. The options to write a new message and add a participant to the Chat will no longer exist unfortunately.
Facebook explained that it realizes the importance of being able to have real-time communications, something that the chat feature in groups allowed. However, the existing infrastructure of the product doesn’t let the feature to be incorporated in the Facebook application.
It should be noted however that Group Chats in Messenger shall not be affected by this move and users will still be able to start a group chat with whoever they are connected to on Messenger.
On August 22nd, the Chats in Facebook Groups will give an impression that all participants have left the conversation. However, this will be only be a part of those chats getting archived.
Users have mixed feelings about the feature going away. While it had its pros such as easily being able to get in touch with fellow group members, many users claimed that they were annoyed by getting added to random group chats.
Facebook claims that it is looking for new ways to enable real-time communication for Groups but have no plans or details to share as of now. Stay tuned for any further developments in this story.
Read next: Facebook’s new changes will remove discrimination from housing, employing, and credit ads
