WhatsApp's second outage after two weeks; users report trouble sending and receiving messages

WhatsApp boasts about its massive user-base of 1.2 billion but it seems the instant messaging application is facing trouble keeping them happy. In what turns out to be a second global outage in a period of two weeks, WhatsApp users from across the globe experienced trouble using the application.

The problem began surfacing around 10:30pm IST when users reported trouble sending and receiving messages. According to a website tracker, Down Detector, numerous people from Malaysia and Spain reported trouble with the app during late evening hours on Wednesday.

According to their report, 55 per cent of the users reported connection issues as the problem. 35 per cent complained about trouble receiving messages and 10 per cent claimed facing issues with logging into the application.

During the previous outage, two weeks back, many users from South American countries resorted to other instant messaging applications like Telegram. WhatsApp's parent company Facebook was also disrupted by outages last week. Considering that many businesses rely heavily on these applications to go about their daily work, outages like these can create huge commotion among its user-base.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp is undergoing scrutiny from the Supreme Court in India. The apex court asked the government to ensure that 160 million Indian subscribers are not "entrapped" in any manner by service providers like WhatsApp, which is providing free services to its users.
The government also told the apex court that it was in the process of evolving a regulatory regime on data protection which would be binding in nature.

"State has a duty to protect the citizenry rights. Since service providers like WhatsApp and Facebook say we are giving it free, the state has to ensure that 160 million citizens who are using the service, are not entrapped in it," a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said.