An hours-long outage affected users of the app across the globe. Picture: iStock
Social media users were relieved after Meta owned WhatsApp was back up after an hours-long outage that affected users of the smartphone app across the globe.
WhatsApp said in a post on the social media platform X that the issues had been resolved.
“And we’re back. Happy chatting!”
At its peak, the outage impacted thousands of WhatsApp users across the globe, including South Africa, while Instagram users also reported over 5 000 outages, Downdetector data showed.
The app did not allow users to send or receive messages.
In March, 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’s Messenger and Threads was also affected and appeared to be completely down. When opening the Threads app on a mobile device, it displayed an error message that said, “Sorry, something went wrong. Try again.”
WhatsApp is undoubtedly one of the most popular messaging apps used by businesses, journalists and ordinary individuals to share posts and communicate with customers and other users across the globe.
As of 2024, WhatsApp has already reached over 2.78 billion users worldwide and it is predicted to cross 3.14 billion by 2025.
Meta has about 3.19 billion daily active users across its family of apps, which also include Threads.
ALSO READ: [UPDATE] Facebook, Instagram and Threads back online after worldwide outage
In September last year, WhatsApp announced that it was expanding its Channels feature aimed towards broadcasted messages.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the global rollout of the feature on his new channel.
“Excited to introduce you all to WhatsApp Channels, a new private way for you to get updates from people and organisations you follow. I’m starting this channel to share Meta news and updates. Looking forward to connecting with you all around the world,” he said.
Just like on the Telegram messaging app, WhatsApp’s Channels lets you receive updates from creators, organisations, and brands.
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