WhatsApp outage a chance for face-to-face communication, Jordanians joke on social media

AMMAN –– Jordanian users of WhatsApp flocked to social media networks to complain they were left “chatless” after a several-hour outage of the free messaging app, which Facebook is buying for $19 billion. 

WhatsApp is the leading smartphone-based messaging app in Jordan, where the penetration of smartphone ownership is around 50 per cent among nearly 8.9 million mobile subscriptions. 

“Sorry we [are] currently experiencing server issues. We hope to be back up and recovered shortly,” WhatsApp said in a message on Twitter that was retweeted more than 25,000 times in just a few hours, according to Agence France-Presse. 

For some chat addicts, the outage on Saturday evening was a chance to make face-to-face communication with family members, the users joked on Facebook and Twitter. 

“WhatsApp is not working. It is good to give our hands a break to talk, to see our families,” Amani Salem wrote on her Facebook page. 

“Let’s go to Viber as it is working,” Nehad Al Helw replied, in reference to another smartphone messaging app.

“WhatsApp is NOT WORKING, my mama is happy now,” Noor Al Abdullah (‏@Noorabdullah) quipped.

“#WhatsApp is down & I officially don’t know how to communicate with anyone in Jordan,” Nadine Ajaka (@NadineAjaka) wrote on her Twitter account.

“#WhatsApp service is down in #Jordan. Is it down anywhere else in the #world?” asked Moe (@mohmdagh). 

Other social media users joked about Facebook’s acquisition deal, linking it with the outage.

On her Twitter account, Enass Abdel Basit posted a photo of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying he had nothing to do with the WhatsApp disruption and that “it was already faulty when we bought it”.

“OK then #WhatsApp is not working in #Jordan Mr. #Zuckerberg,” wrote Shireen Shleef ‏(@ShireenShleef). 

As people were waiting for an update on the messaging service, Ali Al Shareif (@ashareif) wrote after midnight on his Twiiter account: “WhatsApp is back in Jordan.”

The news that the messaging service was back to normal was met with joy by Jordanian chatters. 

“Ululation, Whatsapp is back finally,” Faten Obeidat wrote on her Facebook page. 

WhatsApp did not say how long the outage lasted, but about 2.5 hours later it tweeted again to say: “WhatsApp service has been restored. We are sorry for the downtime...” according to AFP.