Even as the outrage about the Cambridge Analytica controversy rages on the internet with real-world consequences, Facebook has announced the rollout of new features for its Messenger platform.

Facebook Messenger logo. Image: Facebook

According to a post on Facebook Newsroom, it has introduced administrative privileges to group chats for improving the overall experience on the platform by giving users more control.

The major change this brings now is that anyone who wants to join a group on Messenger will have to await approval from the administrator of that group. This is not turned on by default and you will need to activate it if you want to whet the people wanting to be added to the group. This is to ensure the default behaviour of active groups is not disturbed. This will improve management of larger groups to ensure that you have control over who is joining the group.

Other options include the ability to remove any user from the group, promote to an administrator or demote to a regular group member.

Drew Moxon, the Messenger Product Manager added that it is optional for Messenger groups and they may not opt for it if they do not need that level of control for managing that group.

In addition to all this, Facebook is also introducing ‘joinable links’ where anyone can join the groups with the help of these links. Any member that is part of the group can create custom invitation links and then use them to share the group.

This is not the only thing related to the Messenger platform as the video calling feature in Messenger Lite is rolling out today for Android users.