By Charlotte Webster-
WhatsApp went down for users across the UK this morning, with tens of thousands of people reporting being unable to send or receive messages.
Downdetector, which tracks outages, said more than 69,100 reports of problems had been submitted at 8.28am, with issues first detected just before 8am.
By 10.30am on Tuesday, the service status monitoring website DownDetector was reporting a significant drop in users saying they were unable to access the messaging app.
WhatsApp had confirmed the outage earlier in the morning, with reporting site Downdetector showing more than 68,000 users in the UK had reported problems with the app. Issues were also reported by 19,000 users in Singapore and 15,000 in South Africa.
“We know people had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We have fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson for WhatsApp parent company, Meta Platforms, said.
The company did not disclose the reason for the outage. While the app was down, less serious problems hit other services across the net, including sister platforms Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
WhatsApp has become a critical means of communication for households and businesses. When WhatsApp had an hours-long outage last October, it hit trading of assets from cryptocurrencies to oil, before traders switched to alternative platforms such as Telegram.
was aware of an issue and was working to fix it, but the company has not yet confirmed the cause of the fault.
Thousands have taken to social media to complain that they are unable to send or receive messages on the popular Meta-owned platform.
Among the most concerned users of the app were likely to be Conservative MPs – the platform is a widely used tool among backbenchers, Cabinet ministers, and their aides to discuss public messaging and regularly gauge the mood of the Parliamentary party.
However, the number of users that experienced issues could be much higher due to the way the website collects data.
By around 9.30am, that figure had dropped to 29,917 – and just before 10am users were noticing that services were back up and running as usual.
“We know people had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We’ve fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson for the platform’s parent company, Meta, said.
WhatsApp users from around the world went on social media platforms, such as Twitter, to complain that the app was not working.
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Downdetector also found more than 11,000 users in India, and 19,000 in Singapore, had reported experiencing issues.
Users found that while they could open the app and access their conversations, it was failing to deliver new messages or successfully send any. Imagine how hard it is keeping a system that’s used by more than a quarter of the world’s population, available at the touch of a button.
Compare other networks, like road or rail. As any commuter will tell you, they go down far more often than Reddit or Netflix.
Some of the most concerned users were likely to be Conservative MPs, with the platform widely used by backbenchers, cabinet ministers and aides to discuss public messaging.
“We know people had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We’ve fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson for the platform’s parent company, Meta, said.
WhatsApp users from around the world went on social media platforms, such as Twitter, to complain that the app was not working.
The hashtag #whatsappdown was trending on Twitter, with more than 70,000 tweets and hundreds of memes flooding the internet.
Downdetector also found more than 11,000 users in India, and 19,000 in Singapore, had reported experiencing issues.
Users found that while they could open the app and access their conversations, it was failing to deliver new messages or successfully send any.
A cabinet reshuffle will be taking place today, so many MPs hopeful of landing a ministerial job were likely without a vital way of sounding out advisers on their chances of being appointed for the time the service was down.
The app has previously been identified as a tool of choice for MPs plotting against their leader, and Boris Johnson is said to have often been sent summaries of key government information via the platform while he was prime minister.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging platforms in the UK and around the world, and is estimated to have more than two billion active users globally.