Whatsapp Returns Online After a Technical Error With Global Impact

Whatsapp is back online after experiencing a blackout for about 2 hours. (photo: Doc. Pixabay)

JAKARTA – After experiencing blackouts or global downs, the WhatsApp messaging application was back online at 09.00 a.m. GMT (16.00 p.m. Western Indonesian Time or WIB). The company said the outage issue was fixed after users around the world reported the issue on Tuesday, October 25 from 15:00 p.m. WIB.

At around 07.50 a.m. GMT, outage reporting site Downdetector had indicated more than 68.000 users had reported problems with the app in the UK. Problems were reported by 19,000 people in Singapore and 15.000 people in South Africa, too. Likewise with users in Indonesia.

"We know people are having trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We've fixed this issue and apologize for the inconvenience," said a spokesperson for WhatsApp's parent company, Meta Platforms.

"The brief outage was the result of a technical error on our part and has now been resolved," added Meta.

WhatsApp has become an important means of communication for households and businesses. When WhatsApp experienced an hour-long outage last October, it hit trading assets from cryptocurrencies to oil, before traders turned to alternative platforms like Telegram.

"This highlights the importance of large hosting companies that route data across the internet alongside companies and individuals who rely on a single point of communication," said Jack Moore, advisor at Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm ESET.

"Several areas are sure to be significantly impacted as a result of this downtime, along with the expected financial hit, but lessons from other key times recently when the internet died out will hopefully teach many people to have access to other forms of communication," he added. Moore.

WhatsApp's latest outage came during the festive season in India, its biggest market by number of users, when many people used the platform more than usual to send greetings at traditional events in the country.

Shares of WhatsApp's parent Meta Platform were up nearly 4% in afternoon trading. However it has fallen by 0.7% to $128.85 per share in premarket trading after the blackout.

Whatsapp hasn't sent any new updates as users in Asia, India and UK are starting to see some connections back online.

Meanwhile #whatsappdown is trending on Twitter, with more than 142,000 tweets and hundreds of memes flooding the internet.

"Everyone who saw #whatsapp is down has come to twitter to confirm it," said one Twitter user.

In the past, rival apps like Telegram, Snap, or even Instagram from Meta have experienced temporary spikes in users when WhatsApp was down.

While WhatsApp boasts more than two billion monthly active users and has become a mainstay for messaging in most countries, Telegram has become the number one contender with around 700 million users worldwide.