Meta platforms-owned WhatsApp was reportedly down for thousands of users on Wednesday, even as the smartphone messaging app resumed service for some people.
This was made known by outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
The outage is not only in the UK, with users worldwide apparently experiencing issues. News outlets in the US, India and Israel are all reporting problems with the services. According to reports, the application is not allowing users to send or receive messages.
Instagram outages skyrocketed to more than 2,500 as of 7pm on Wednesday evening. Data for WhatsApp showed as many as 60,000 users affected at around the same time. Facebook was hit by far fewer reports at around 1,522.
It was learnt that around 3,200 people were also facing issues with Instagram in the United States, per Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.
“We know some people are experiencing issues right now, we’re working on getting things back to 100 per cent for everyone as quickly as possible,” WhatsApp said in a post on the social media platform X.
There were about 2,500 incidents of U.S. users reporting issues with the messaging platform, according to Downdetector.
Nearly 3,500 users in India, about 10,000 in the United Kingdom and over 7,000 in Brazil also reported problems with the platform, Downdetector data showed.
The data showed that at its peak, the outage impacted more than 24,000 WhatsApp users in the United States, while Instagram users reported over 5,000 outages.
Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request forcomment.
Last month, hundreds of thousands of users of the social media company’s Facebook and Instagram were impacted globally for more than two hours following an outage that was caused by a technical issue.
Meta has about 3.19 billion daily active users across its family of apps, which also includes Threads.
This development has sparked reactions from social media users.
One user @wenwdyy, said, “Whatsapp crashing reminds me of the times you would crash at my side.”
Noting X has never crashed, @SarthiRaj07, wrote,””X ” Server never CRASH….. But whatsApp and Instagram server crash in every couple of months 😮💨….
I’m chatting to my friend….. But now I’m going to sleep 🥺. .”
While bemoaning that the incessant crash of the platform @Samsonthrills, said, “So we should be expecting WhatsApp to crash every week now?😒”
@jadebickerton16, who praised X for its outstanding, wrote, “Feel like X is the only app which doesn’t crash once a month😂 first place i went when Whatsapp went down🤦🏽♀️.”
Mocking WhatsApp@Hon_alaoonilu, wrote, “I will take a break tonight with my babe as WhatsApp don crash. No long call tonight😂.”
Also@twmmyfrmdao, said, “if nobe X now, i for no know say WhatsApp don crash 🤣.”
