Meta is bringing Instagram’s ‘Close Friends’ feature to WhatsApp. The feature allows users to cordon off a select group of people in their contacts to share their most intimate moments. Close Friends has been an Instagram staple for years, a boon particularly for people with large followings to share more private information with their closest friends and family without the need for a secondary account.
WhatsApp goes up close
While the platform remains a novelty in the US, WhatsApp has surged to a user base of 1.5 billion daily. Meta has been shipping novelty features from its more popular platforms onto the now-gargantuan messaging app. Now, the company is bringing Close Friends, too.
Currently, users options for sharing on the platform entail: “My Contacts” which shares with their whole contact list, “My Contacts Except…” which allows users to exclude certain contacts, and “Only share with…” which essentially replicates the Close Friends feature by only sharing with a select group of contacts, but can only be used once per post.
The feature was spotted by WaBetaInfo in WhatsApp’s latest release on TestFlight, Apple’s platform where users can test out app betas. Close Friends posts on Instagram are distinguishable by a green ring around the poster’s profile picture, and the same will go for posts on WhatsApp. The messaging app’s Stories are already indicated with a green ring; Close Friends posts will likely get a different colour. Keeping in line with the intended discretion of the feature, people added and removed as close friends will not be notified.
