WhatsApp goes down for thousands as users unable to send or receive messages

By Henry Moore

Messaging app WhatsApp is down for thousands of users across the UK.

Listen to this article

Loading audio...

Users have been unable to send or receive messages on the popular app.

At least 38,000 reported the app being down, as per DownDetector.

Meta did not comment on the outage, with service quickly returning after it began.

It comes after Meta was forced to issue an apology after receiving a flood of complaints about gore, violence and dead bodies appearing on Instagram reels.

Swathes of Instagram users reported a suspected malfunction in social media platform‘s algorithm, which curates what appears for people on the app.

Reels is a feature similar to TiKTok on the Mark Zuckerberg-owned platform, that lets users share short clips.

In a Reddit forum, users shared how they had been shown horror graphic material appearing in their feeds earlier in the week.