Many WhatsApp users worldwide could not send and receive messages on Monday as the app suddenly went offline. Early this morning, complaints began to roll in, with the primary issue being the failure to send or receive any messages. Many were left in search of other social media sites to use as the frustration emerged fully.

Global Impact

In accordance with the outage map created by DownDetector, people complained about it in India, the United States, and some countries in Europe. Some of the challenges cited by the users included failure in the delivery of messages and challenges in using the app fully. Companies that mainly use WhatsApp for communicating and handling customers were also affected a lot.

Meta’s Silence

Yet, its parent company, Meta, does not seem to have stated the matter at the time of writing this article. This has triggered an outcry among the users who said their concerns were never communicated by the authorities through their social media handles. Twitter, in particular, was loaded with memes and updates; within several hours, the hashtag #WhatsAppDown galloped to the trending list.

Recurring Issue?

A major outage like this is not new to WhatsApp, and usually, if it happens again, there will be an urgent update. Such cases have happened before and, most of the time, are blamed on technical malfunctions on the server end. However, one thing that has always left many people questioning Meta is the level of communication that the company puts forward in the course of such incidents.

What’s Next?

Some users claimed that after several hours, services were restored, but others claimed they experienced intermittent problems. It is suggested that other backup communication channels should be prepared in advance where specific business operations heavily depend on WhatsApp.

For now, the users are left to speculate what was behind the outage and why there’s no statement from Meta on it. Given that WhatsApp is already an essential platform for messaging more than two billion people, speed and open communication have never been as essential.