Anger as users cry: what’s up with WhatsApp?

THE WhatsApp messenger app crashed around the world on Friday morning, creating anger and frustration as millions of users, including those in South Africa, could not interact with friends.

The Facebook-owned messenger app has more than one billion people in over 180 countries who use it for work and to stay in touch with friends and family.

The Sun newspaper in the UK reported that the outage appeared to have hit much of Europe and areas in Malaysia and Indonesia. WhatsApp confirmed it was working on a solution to the problem. South Africa was not spared the outage either.

Taking to social media platforms like Twitter, users created a hashtag #WhatsAppDown to vent their anger at the crashing of the messenger app server which left them unable to send or receive messages.

“And at the end of the day, #Twitter will be the only answer and our last hope,” one user quipped.

Others saw and and created humorous memes to poke fun at those who were angered by the crashing of their favourite app.

WhatsApp users in South Africa said the application was up and running once more by midday local time.

Just this week WhatsApp introduced its newest “delete for everyone” feature which users can use to delete messages within a sevenminute window if they have sent a message to the wrong person.