1.5bn users affected after WhatsApp shuts down Worldwide

Facebook-owned Whatsapp experienced a short global outage few minutes to midnight on Tuesday, January 22, 2019, with several users affected.

Billions of WhatsApp users on Android, iPhone and other operating systems were unable to send or receive messages via the cross-platform messaging and voice over IP service.

According some affected users, messages failed to send and the app would not load.

However, the issue did not appear to be affecting every user of the site, with some able to get onto both the app and its desktop and web versions.

WhatsApp spokesperson confined the downtime, saying “Yesterday, WhatsApp users experienced issues with accessing the app and sending messages. The issue was resolved within a few minutes.” However, there was no word on the cause of the brief stoppage of the messenger app.

This comes a day after WhatsApp announced the limit of number of times a user can forward a message to five in order to curb “misinformation and rumours”.

Read also: Google slapped with $57m fine for violating rules

Previously, a WhatsApp user could forward a message to 20 other users or groups.

“We’re imposing a limit of five messages all over the world as of today,” Victoria Grand, vice president for policy and communications at WhatsApp said on Monday.

The limit is as a result of the spread of rumors on the social media platform, which led to killings and lynching attempts in India in July 2018.

This is not the first time WhatsApp is experiencing a global outage as users faced a similar situation in the year 2017.

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