WhatsApp down in UAE? Netizens report outage in services

Netizens in the UAE joined users around the world in reporting WhatsApp services were down in what appeared to be a global outage early Friday morning.

According to Downdetector.ae, over 900 complaints were recorded by users facing issues as at 12.55am. However, WhatsApp users in other parts of the world reported far more issues, with the website recording nearly tens of thousands of complaints for the same time period - particularly from users in Europe.

Not long after, the instant messaging app acknowledged the situation in a brief statement on Twitter. "You may be experiencing some issues using WhatsApp at the moment. We’re aware and working to get things running smoothly again," it said. "We’ll keep you updated and in the meantime, thanks for your patience."

Roughly half an hour later, the service posted an update, reporting all was well again. "And we're back. Happy chatting!" it said, without offering any explanation about what caused the outage.

This is not the first time the service has faced technical issues on a global scale. Last year, the social messaging service famously suffered a six-hour outage that paralysed the social media platform.