Zoom users concerned with the video conferencing app’s many privacy issues have a new alternative: Facebook just launched a new video chat product called Messenger Rooms, an expanded version of Facebook Messenger’s video calling function.
Messenger Rooms, which is currently available to all Facebook users on both desktop and mobile, allows up to 50 people to chat at once with no time limit. Users can set limits to who can join, or they can make their chat public to anyone who has a link — regardless of whether that person has a Facebook account.
“You can start and share rooms on Facebook through News Feed, Groups and Events, so it’s easy for you to drop by whenever you want,” Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook’s vice president of Messenger, explained in a blog post. “You can choose who can see and join your room or remove people from your room and lock the room if you don’t want anyone else to join.”
It’s worth noting that if you decide to make the chat public to your entire friends list, it will show up at the top of the News Feed for all of them — so unless you’re dying to catch up with that friend from college you haven’t spoken to in a decade, you may want to avoid doing that.
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