WhatsApp Web appeared to be down on Wednesday, May 20, across the United States and some parts in India too with multiple users reporting a service disruption and unexpected redirects to Facebook. Hundreds of users complained that they were redirected to the login page of Facebook, another of WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta’s platform, as they tried to scan their passkey through the mobile app to log into WhatsApp web.
Notably, WhatsApp users across the world reported outages, including Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore.
Downdetector, online platform that provides real-time information on status of various websites and services, confirmed reported outages in the past hour. In India, most people reported issues with its app at 5:16 am(IST) while residents in the United States encountered problem with the website at mostly around 5:12 am (IST). “User reports show possible problems with Whatsapp,” the website states.
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Nearly 47% US users reported issues with website and 22% blamed app, Downdetector data shows. Over 200 people reported issues with WhatsApp Web on DownDetector in the US.
However, WhatsApp has not yet issued a statement on the problem but the outpouring of outage on social media clearly indicates that a significant number of people faced the issue.
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Social media reaction
According to online account of most users, WhatsApp desktop and web versions malfunctioned. When one tries to access WhatsApp web then they are directed to Facebook page asking to login.
A user wrote, “Whatsapp app became face, whatsapp web is redirecting to facebook and also crash and not loading. WTF is happening?”
Another user remarked, “If you open whatsapp at this moment, it is like i’m in facebook, and literally if you open whatsapp desktop app it runs facebook by himself.”
A third comment read, “Good to see it’s not just me having the redirect to FB problem. Meta seriously sucks.”
A fourth user stated,”I reinstalled WhatsApp, but it keeps on asking me to log in to my Facebook account. Why is that so?”
A fifth user remarked, “Opened WhatsApp Web, got teleported to Facebook. DNS engineer fighting for his life.”
A sixth user asked, “Is WhatsApp Web having issues again? I’m logging in but it’s redirecting me to Facebook.”
A seventh user wrote, “Why is it that when I open WhatsApp on my laptop, Facebook opens instead? Is WhatsApp Web down?”
