Confusion as Whatsapp goes down

Michael Mashiri

Users of popular social media platform WhatsApp were jolted around midmorning today when the service temporarily went down.

Some of the users went to Facebook to express their concerns.

Takudzwa Mukariri wrote: “I was communicating with my wife and the WhatsApp started to fail receiving messages. At first, l thought my phone was having a problem.”

Shingirai Munhuwa said: “Ndikumbirireiwo Ruregerero kuGerofurendi yangu ndanga ndatopopota ndichiti andidzimira 4ni. (Can you please help ask for forgiveness to my girlfriend, l reacted harshly to her saying she had turned her phone off).”

Natalie Murwira wrote: “Ndandanzwa nekudzima ndichibatidza. (I have been turning on and off my phone.”

Businesspeople, especially those in the informal sector who rely on the cheap service to share quotations, samples and other documents with their clients through Whatsapp, were also not spared by the breakdown.

CEO of Deta Projects Nigel Mutumbi said: “That period when WhatsApp went down really affected us we are supposed to be in continuous communication with our clients because that is where we get our money. It just went off and we did not know what to do,” he said.

A businessman, who only identified himself as Aweje, said he had lost money because he could not send pictures of his products to his customer.

“I lost money because l thought my phone was having a problem. A customer was supposed to give me US$300, but now, because the pictures could not deliver, l lost the money,” he said.

Some of the WhatsApp users around the world took to Twitter their frustrations to complain about the situation. The hastag#whatsappdown had more than 70 000 tweets and many memes all over the internet.

A spokersperson of Meta, which runs Whatsapp told Reuters in a statement that they were aware of the situation that had befallen the global communication platform.

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble sending messages and we’re working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible,’ read the statement in part.

When WhatsApp went up again some users said it had versions showing updated features.

The WhatsApp platform has become a medium of choice for many around the globe because it is easily accessible and affordable.

In 2021, the platform, which sent over 100 billion messages in a day in 2020, had about 2 billion users with the figure rising to approximately 2,44 billion active users by April 2022, according to Statista.