WhatsApp goes down, Hongkongers call apocalypse

Messaging service WhatsApp went down today sending some Hongkongers’ lives into a frantic tailspin of apocalyptic panic, judging by comments on social media.

The outage affected users across the globe and left them unable to send and receive messages. The service appears to be working normally again this evening.

For many in Hong Kong, where the service is exceedingly popular, it was a particularly dark moment.

”The end of the world is here already?” posted one user, who was presumably peeking through drawn curtains.

A few people found another way to express their feelings of impending doom, posting a clip from a popular Chinese New Year comedy film called All’s Well End’s Well.

In the film, the parents spend most of the film sitting in the living room watching TV, but that all changes when their son’s new girlfriend accidentally short-circuits the whole house — they freak out and immediately call apocalypse.




Others, meanwhile, worried about the impact on their relationships, fearing the loss of connection with their partner could spell doom.

“If u can’t reply your gf [on] whatsapp within 5mins, she will get angry” another commenter pointed out.

According to website Downdetector, which tracks reports of apps and services not working, WhatsApp began experiencing issues just after 2:30pm Hong Kong time.

A live map tracking the outages shows a concentration of problems with the service over Europe and parts of Asia, including Hong Kong.

The messaging service Line got in on the action, and moved quickly to seize an opportunity.

“We don’t mind, you can use Line,” they said, in a comment from the service’s Facebook account.

Another user tried to calm his worried netizens by reminding them: “We still have WeChat”.

For some, sadly, the disruption was barely noticed, as they lamented that no one messaged them on WhatsApp anyway.

And, for others, well, it was actually quite nice.

“The world is more peaceful now without Whatsapp” one commented.



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