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Facebook Watch Party feature is available now

Facebook Watch Party feature is available now
Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney

  • Updated:

Facebook’s Watch Party feature came to the social network earlier this year. The roll-out of Watch Party, however, which allows users to watch videos from Facebook Watch alongside their other Facebook friends was limited to Groups. You could only watch Facebook videos with friends you were in groups with. This has now changed.

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Facebook Watch Party is now available to everyone

Watch Party is supposed to be one of Facebook’s ways of promoting an active social media experience centered around making human connections. With more data becoming available highlighting the damage that too much social media can do to a person, Facebook has been keen to show that there are healthy ways of spending many hours on a social network. If you’re making active contributions to the network and connecting with other members then this can be a positive experience. The science backing up Facebook’s claim is patchy, to say the least, but Watch Party is one of the ways that Facebook is trying to foster more active interactions among its users.

Facebook has now announced the wider roll-out of Facebook Watch Party to all users:

“Today we’re launching Watch Party to all Pages and people on Facebook, the next milestone in our journey to build social, interactive experiences around video on Facebook. Watch Party enables people, creators, and publishers to watch, discuss and react to playlists of videos together in real time, in a shared space.”

According to Facebook, over 12 million Watch Parties have been initiated in Groups since the feature launched in January. This has helped create eight times as many comments on Watch Party videos than on non-live videos in Groups.

On top of the wider roll-out, Facebook has also announced a few improved features to help foster interactions between party members. These include threaded comments, which will give viewers the ability to have conversations in the comments while also being able to continue commenting live on the video. Other key features include hosts being able to schedule Watch Parties in advance and even be able to commentate over the video as it playing.

All of this means that from today Facebook Watch Parties will be available on all Facebook pages and profiles all around the world. As ever with such large roll-outs, however, these things take time. If you still haven’t received the feature on your profile don’t worry, it is on the way.

We’re eager to learn how Facebook users have been taking advantage of the Watch Party feature and how you plan to use it in the future. If you’ve taken part in a Facebook Watch Party, we’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below.

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney

Patrick Devaney is a news reporter for Softonic, keeping readers up to date on everything affecting their favorite apps and programs. His beat includes social media apps and sites like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and Snapchat. Patrick also covers antivirus and security issues, web browsers, the full Google suite of apps and programs, and operating systems like Windows, iOS, and Android.

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