WhatsApp Is Often Down And We Are Too Addictive

WhatsApp illustration (HeikoAL / Pixabay)

JAKARTA - For the umpteenth time, the WhatsApp instant message service experienced a problem. Users simultaneously complained about not being able to send multimedia messages, such as photos and videos.

This disturbance occurred on Sunday, January 19 or from 17.44 WIB until 18.59 WIB. Based on information on the downdetector site, there are 849 WhatsApp error reports and it does not only occur in Indonesia, but also users in Malaysia, parts of the Middle East and Europe.

And as usual, when a social media service collapses, netizens will vent their disappointment on Twitter. The hashtag #whatsappdown began to spread on Twitter's timeline.

If detailed, the problems encountered such as difficulty receiving incoming messages and not being able to connect WhatsApp to the website version. However, other complaints that occur include the inability to use WhatsApp to send media messages such as photos, videos, voice messages, GIFs, stickers, or documents.

WhatsApp is restoring the service. The server issue should be fixed now. https://t.co/hWPrd3FKFp

- WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 19, 2020

If you trace the WhatsApp service, it is quite often that it collapses or experiences interference. At least nine times, this instant messaging application under the auspices of Facebook collapsed in 2019.

Even on March 14, WhatsApp was down for 12 hours. It also affects Facebook and Instagram services, because the disruption occurs due to server problems.

"The Facebook disruption that turns social media users into a frenzy, with some still experiencing it for up to 12 hours, is the longest-running disruption in the company's 15-year history," wrote Yahoo technology columnist Samuel Hussey at the time.

Addictive

In fact, WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging application, with 1.6 billion active users who continue to grow every month. Based on the State of Mobile report, the monthly active users of WhatsApp have increased by 30 percent in the past year.

WhatsApp's success is due to offering a free service that replaces the role of traditional messaging applications via SMS. Not to mention the ease of access for users to create a WhatsApp account, only through cell phone numbers.

In fact, more than half of Indonesia's population plays social media. It is recorded that 355.5 million cellular subscribers in Indonesia are active on social media. Summarized from the We Are Social report, internet users in Indonesia have grown 13 percent, or around 17 million active users, since January last year.

We Are Social Research

With the average daily time spent accessing the internet from any device reaches 8 hours 36 minutes. Even for social media, Indonesians were recorded to be the most active for 3 hours 26 minutes.

We Are Social said that YouTube is at the top with a percentage of 88 percent of the total number of Indonesian internet users. This is followed by services under Mark Zuckerberg's group of companies, namely WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram.

So it's quite a hassle if WhatsApp has to fall down frequently. Because almost everyone in Indonesia and even the world rely heavily on WhatsApp to communicate.

Under the auspices of Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he has big plans to integrate WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger services. So that in the future, social media users can send messages across platforms.

This he said when announcing Facebook's Q4 2018 revenue. Even so, Zuckerberg did not explain when the integration would take place.

"We are still in the early stages of this (integration) plan. There is much more we need to think about before the execution," he said as quoted by Mashable.

Indirectly, the plan to merge the back-end infrastructure of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger certainly raises doubts, especially regarding user privacy. Even though the three applications are both under the Facebook umbrella.

The discourse to merge the three social media application services into one platform is certainly not an easy matter. Facebook engineers had to work hard to bring Mark Zuckerberg's idea to life. As a result, one or all three of these services can crash simultaneously, due to several errors.

"This plan, which is still in its early stages with the goal of being completed by the end of this year or early 2020, requires thousands of Facebook employees to configure how WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger function at the most basic level," wrote the New York Times.

Trials and errors often happen to the trio of social media services when they are down simultaneously. Even the discourse to unify the technical infrastructure of each platform was greeted pessimistically by Brian Acton, the founder of WhatsApp, who subsequently decided to withdraw from WhatsApp and Facebook.

"Mark has high ambitions and I think this year will be the year when the three services unification will be realized. Success or not, it will be seen later," said Acton.

* Everytime Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook goes down * Me: #whatsappdown pic.twitter.com/hbLSgEGGRo

- Alexander Umeakubuike ™ 🤕🔱⚜️ (@AlexUmeakubuike) January 19, 2020

Criticism from the Neighbors Application

In the digital world, WhatsApp is not the only social media service. When WhatsApp is difficult to access or even collapses due to server problems due to the integrity of its service. Telegram can be an alternative instant messaging application.

If WhatsApp often has privacy issues, Telegram is just the opposite. The platform created by Pavel Durov has become the pioneer of end-to-end encryption security features.

That means, messages sent in plain text will be converted into encryption codes and can only be read or decrypted by the intended account. So that encryption of messages from messages sent via Telegram will be very difficult for hackers to penetrate.

The frequent collapse of the WhatsApp service made the Telegram founder suggest that smartphone users uninstall the instant messaging application. The suggestion was made by Durov, because he thought that WhatsApp had failed to protect its millions of users. Because these applications are often infiltrated by malicious applications (malware) such as Trojans, which can be used to spy on the contents of a user's cellphone.

"WhatsApp not only fails to protect your WhatsApp messages, this application is consistently used as a Trojan to spy on photos and messages that don't even come from the WhatsApp application," Durov explained through his official channel on Telegram, Durov's Channel.

Durov added that Facebook had been taking part in spying programs long before they acquired WhatsApp. In other words, WhatsApp is a weapon for Facebook to monitor its users.