On Friday afternoon, WhatsApp experienced a brief disruption, prompting a wave of reports from users across the globe. Downdetector, a platform dedicated to tracking outages, recorded over 50,000 incidents shortly after 15:30 GMT, although this number began to decline shortly thereafter.
Resolution and User Impact
In response to the situation, a spokesperson for WhatsApp confirmed that the issues, primarily affecting users’ ability to send messages, had been resolved. “We know some people briefly had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp,” the spokesperson stated to the BBC. “We’ve fixed the issue.”
While some users also reported difficulties with Facebook and Facebook Messenger, the volume of complaints was significantly lower compared to those experienced with WhatsApp. The end-to-end encrypted messaging service, which was acquired by Meta in 2014, boasts nearly three billion users worldwide.
Meta’s previous mass global outage occurred in December, impacting both WhatsApp and Instagram. During a recent investor call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed optimism about the company’s trajectory, stating that they are “making progress towards becoming the leading messaging platform in the US, as it is in many parts of the world.” In October, he noted that the app facilitated over two billion calls daily worldwide.
The sheer scale of WhatsApp’s user base means that any technical hiccup can resonate with millions globally. However, the recent issues have not approached the severity of the 2021 outage, which left Meta’s apps nonfunctional for nearly six hours. As the company continues to navigate these challenges, the resilience of its platforms remains a focal point for both users and investors alike.
