Introducing the new Public Groups experience, with New Admin Tools

Community is at the core of Facebook app experience. To help grow communities like yours, and help more people become part of communities that matter to them, we’re launching a new Public Groups experience over the coming months. Our goal is to grow diverse perspectives and increase authentic conversations across Public Groups, while giving admins powerful new tools to keep their groups safe and the quality of conversations high.

The New Experience

The new Public Groups experience is more accessible to people on Facebook, with a number of benefits for admins:

• Grow your community more easily:

Greater reach over time: People will be able to discover and benefit from content in Public Groups in more places over time, both on and off Facebook. This includes showing related discussions from Public Groups on News Feed on Facebook, when someone posts a link or shares a post. It also includes popular posts from Public Groups in the Groups tab. People will also continue to be able to read Public Group content even when logged out of Facebook.

Members can instantly join: We’re also making it easy for people to join Public Groups and get updates with a single click, without needing approval. This enables people to easily get updates and stay connected with communities they want to join. Admins still have control over who can post and comment with new admin tools (more below).

• Encourage a variety of conversations by including visitors: We’re giving admins the option to let visitors participate in their Public Groups. Visitors who haven’t yet joined the group can enrich conversations taking place, and take the step to become a member at any time to stay connected more easily with the group. Admins will still be able to control who can post and comment via new admin tools.
• Keep your group safe (and save time) with powerful new tools: In tandem with the new, more accessible Public Groups experience, we’re increasing admin controls. We know keeping groups safe and the quality of conversations high is always top of mind for admins, particularly as groups grow. With the new public groups experience, you can manage who posts and comments in your group, with a range of new tools to support, including Participant Approvals and Admin Assist. See details on each of these tools below.

Changing Over to the New Experience

In the coming months, you will have the option to opt-in to this new Public Groups experience before it rolls out to everyone. Once the experience starts rolling out, you’ll be notified when the switch will take place, and will have the option to convert the group earlier than that date by opting in from your group settings. Please keep in mind that once your group shifts to the new experience, it’s not possible to switch back. So, if you prefer for the shift to take place at a specific time, consider opting in early.

Other Things to Know

We are currently testing Messenger Rooms and Chats within Groups, and learning how they can be most helpful in the new Public Groups experience. After opting into the new Public Groups experience, your group will no longer have Chats and Rooms (if they were available previously). This means existing Rooms and Chats will no longer be accessible and new ones cannot be created.

Suite of Tools to Expand Admin Control

In addition to existing moderation tools, such as Post Approval and Keyword Alerts, all admins will have access to two powerful new tools to manage posts and comments — Participant Approval and Admin Assist — when your group shifts to the new experience.

Participant Approval enables you to review everyone – both new members and visitors who have not yet joined – before they can post or comment for the first time. If you select this option, people who submit a request to participate when posting or commenting for the first time will go into a queue for admins to review.

Once you approve, these people's posts will then go to your pending posts, if turned on, and their comments will be allowed on future posts going forward. Note that members you vetted through membership approval before shifting to the new experience will already be approved (you won’t need to vet them again), able to post and comment in line with your group’s existing moderation settings.

Now, to help with managing a growing number of posts in your group, you can use Admin Assist , a new tool that runs moderation tasks for you, based on specific criteria you set up. Admin Assist can save time, reducing what you need to manually review, so you can spend more time enjoying your group.

Here are a few ways you can use Admin Assist:

• Limit who participates in the group by automatically declining incoming posts from people who haven’t been a member of the group very long, those who don’t have a profile photo, and many other options.
• Restrict posts based on the quality of the content. For example, you can limit promotional content by declining posts that include links or that include certain keywords.
• Remove posts and turn off commenting on posts, to help to keep discussions positive.
• If you have Participant Approval turned on, you can also auto-approve participant requests that meet criteria you set up.
• Admin Assist works in tandem with post approval — if you have post approval turned on, incoming posts not impacted by Admin Assist criteria will go to your pending posts for review.
• You remain in full control over Admin Assist, with the option to undo specific actions from Admin Assist in your Activity Log, and to change and refine criteria set over time.
• You can also share feedback via Admin Assist with people whose posts don’t meet each requirement, giving them the option to edit and resubmit their post for review.
• To help you get started, we’ve included preset criteria you can add, based on how admins moderate their groups today. You can then customize these criteria to best fit your group.

Admin Assist will be available for new Public Groups after opt-in, and will also be rolling out over the coming months to all Private Groups. To get started, in your admin tools, you’ll see a section called “Admin Assist.” From there, you can then set up specific tasks based on criteria you select for each. You can find out more about Admin Assist here.

Outside of Admin Assist, you can also manually review and choose to mute or block any member or visitor in the group who has posted or commented in the past 28 days, whether or not they’re a member.

In addition, to help people learn your group's rules , we're surfacing them in more places. Now, when someone goes to post or comment in your group, they will have the option to view the group's rules. In the coming months, you'll also be able to easily remind people of your group's rules by tagging one on a post or comment.

Finally, we’ve expanded Group Insights to help you understand how visitors are contributing to growth and engagement in your group. For growth, you can see the number of people who posted and commented, joined, and who viewed. For engagement, you can see popular days and times, and top posts. You’ll be able to see your overall insights and toggle to see only member contributions or only visitor contributions for each.

Differences between Public and Private Groups

These updates will make Public and Private Groups more distinct from each other. Private Groups will continue to have the same membership features, with membership approvals and membership questions. Although these membership features will no longer be available in the new Public Groups, we’re offering a similar feature mentioned above — participant approvals with optional participation questions, that enable admins to vet both members and visitors before they can post or comment. Private Group content is not publicly visible without joining the Group.

What’s Next

We’re testing the new Public Groups experience and will be bringing the new experience to everyone over the coming months. We’re excited for the growth in conversations this new experience will bring to communities like yours — together with tools to help you, as an admin, keep your group a safe and vibrant space.