WhatsApp users started reporting issues with the service at around 3 am ET. Thousands of people across the globe took to social media to complain that they couldn’t exchange messages or make calls. Neither WhatsApp nor Meta has commented on the reason for the outage. However, at 5 am ET, the issue was resolved. According to Wabetainfo, a website that tracks WhatsApp news and updates, a “server-side” issue caused the outage. A spokesperson for Meta confirmed to The Verge that they’ve fixed the problem. “We’ve fixed the issue and apologize for any inconvenience,” he said. This is the first outage of this scale that WhatsApp has experienced since a disruption that left Meta’s services down for nearly six hours in June last year.
Alternatives to WhatsApp
WhatsApp is the biggest instant messaging service in the world, with over two billion active users. In 2020, the service was delivering around 100 billion messages a day. Many businesses and government organizations across the globe rely on WhatsApp for private and public communications. Are you looking for an alternative messaging platform to ensure things continue to run smoothly even when WhatsApp goes down? Check out our article on the top alternatives to WhatsApp. Despite its immense popularity, WhatsApp is not the only service that supports private messaging. In fact, although WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption, many people do not completely trust the service and opt for Telegram or Signal instead. WhatsApp has been at the center of some controversies over the years. Early in 2021, there was a mass exodus from the messaging service after an update to its privacy policy made many users think their private messages would be shared with Facebook. The company launched a privacy campaign to assuage concerns and clarify its policies. While WhatsApp insists messages exchanged on its platform are only accessible to the sender and recipient, documents leaked in December last year show that the FBI may have real-time access to WhatsApp messages.
How to Unblock WhatsApp in Your Country
Given its ubiquity, WhatsApp is one of the messaging platforms targeted by authoritarian regimes. WhatsApp is currently banned in China and North Korea. While in some countries like Qatar, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates, access to it is restricted. Iran has also banned the use of WhatsApp and many other social media apps in light of the ongoing anti-regime protests. If you live in these countries or you’re visiting, using a VPN can allow you to escape government restrictions and access WhatsApp. However, VPNs are not legal everywhere. We recommend looking into whether using a VPN is permitted in the country. Are you interested in unblocking other popular apps? We have in-depth articles on how to circumvent censorship and unblock apps like Facebook, Skype, and TikTok from anywhere in the world.
