Facebook has announced that it will discontinue the group chat feature that was introduced last October. The aim of the tool was to facilitate communication between group members outside post comments. Starting today, August 22, chats in groups will not be available.
Each Facebook group had a chat button at the top of the panel where up to 250 users could communicate in written form within Messenger. Video and audio calls could be made in chat groups of up to 50 members.
Since Friday of last week, it has not been possible to open new chats in groups and today, August 22, Facebook is completely removing the feature. You’ll still see old chats and their messages, but you won’t be able to chat with them anymore. Group chats will take the form of archived conversations.
The change applies to chats from groups, not personal group chats that you have created with friends through your personal Messenger.
Whether Facebook made this decision due to capacity problems or spamming is not clear. Facebook did not provide the specific reasons for the removal, they have just said that they know how useful the feature is to communities, but are no longer able to support it. Facebook is, however, exploring new ways to provide a similar feature in the future.
