Last but not least: "R.I.P WhatsApp"
Brazilians will have to do without the popular text messaging service WhatsApp on Thursday and Friday. A court has ordered a 48-hour blockade because the US company allegedly failed to cooperate in criminal proceedings.
The service had been switched off since 11.30 p.m. on Thursday night, as users reported. A court in São Bernardo do Campo in the state of São Paulo had ordered the telephone companies to block the service at short notice on Wednesday evening. The background to this is criminal proceedings in which the provider is said to have failed to cooperate. It was initially unclear what the proceedings were about. In February, a nationwide blockade was rejected by a court of appeal. According to media reports at the time, the case concerned the release of data to the police in connection with a paedophilia case.
Over 35 million people affected
In the current case, WhatsApp is said not to have responded to a court order from July 23. On August 7, the blockade was threatened. As there was again no response, the public prosecutor's office ordered the unprecedented block in the fifth largest country in the world. Brazil is one of the countries with the most users of the service. Estimates put the figure at over 35 million. The service can be used to send messages, photos, videos and voice messages free of charge, among other things, and phone calls can also be made free of charge to anywhere in the world with a suitable internet connection. WhatsApp has largely replaced the paid SMS short message service. Around 900 million people worldwide are said to use WhatsApp. Facebook bought the service in 2014 for around 22 billion dollars.
In initial reactions, Brazilians reacted with humor to the outage of the communication platform. "R.I.P WhatsApp - I loved you very much"; "Pray for WhatsApp" and: "Let's kiss until WhatsApp comes back" were the comments on Twitter.
Facebook wants to become active
Facebook founder Zuckerberg spoke of a "sad day for Brazil" and called on the court to revoke the order immediately. Zuckerberg spoke of an "extreme decision by a single judge" that penalizes every WhatsApp user in Brazil. He promised that Facebook would do everything in its power to ensure that the service would soon be accessible again in Brazil. In the meantime, users should switch to Facebook's Messenger service.
However, hundreds of thousands apparently looked for another alternative instead - namely the Telegram service. This has been around since 2013, was developed by the Russian brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov in the USA and is based in Berlin.
Telegram announced on Thursday that there had been 1.5 million new registrations within a few hours. On Twitter, the company called for patience if not all the necessary codes are received immediately. "All hands are on deck to handle the onslaught!" (uma/SDA)
