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WhatsApp back online after global outage hits users

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  • We have fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience, says WhatsApp’s parent company Meta.
  • The company did not disclose the reason for the outage.
  • WhatsApp has become a critical means of communication for households and businesses.

Messaging app WhatsApp was starting to come back online at 2pm Pakistan time (0900 GMT) and the company said the issue has been fixed after users across the world reported problems earlier on Tuesday.

At around 12:50pm (0750 GMT), outage reporting site Downdetector had shown over 68,000 users had reported problems with the app in the United Kingdom. Problems were reported by 19,000 people in Singapore and 15,000 people in South Africa, Pakistan and other countries as well.

“We know people had trouble sending messages on WhatsApp today. We have fixed the issue and apologise for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson for WhatsApp parent company Meta Platforms said.

The company did not disclose the reason for the outage.

WhatsApp has become a critical means of communication for households and businesses. When WhatsApp had an hours-long outage last October, it hit trading of assets from cryptocurrencies to oil, before traders switched to alternative platforms such as Telegram.

“This highlights the significance of vast hosting companies directing data around the internet along with companies and individuals relying on single points of communication,” said Jack Moore, advisor at Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm ESET.

“Multiple areas will inevitably be significantly impacted as a result of this downtime, along with a predicted financial hit but lessons from other recent prominent times when the internet has gone down will have hopefully taught many to have access to other forms of communication.”

WhatsApp’s latest outage came during the festive season in India — its biggest market by user count — when people use the platform even more than usual to send season’s greetings.

Shares of WhatsApp-parent Meta Platforms fell 0.7% to $128.85 in premarket trading following the outage.

The company had not sent any fresh updates as users in Asia, India and the United Kingdom started seeing some connections come back online.

#whatsappdown was trending on Twitter, with more than 142000 tweets and hundreds of memes flooding the internet.

“Everyone who noticed #whatsapp is down have come to twitter to confirm it,” says one Twitter user.

In the past, rival apps like Telegram, Snap or even Meta’s Instagram have seen temporary spikes in users when WhatsApp has been down.

While WhatsApp boasts of over two billion monthly active users and have become a mainstay for messaging in most countries, Telegram has taken up the challenger role with about 700 million users. 

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Cybersecurity firm reports exposure of sensitive DeepSeek data on the internet.

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The New York-based cybersecurity firm Wiz has discovered a cache of sensitive data from the Chinese artificial intelligence business DeepSeek that was mistakenly exposed to the public internet.

In a blog post released on Wednesday, Wiz reported that examinations of DeepSeek’s infrastructure revealed that the company had inadvertently exposed over a million lines of unencrypted data. The materials were digital software keys and chat logs that seemingly documented prompts transmitted from consumers to the company’s complimentary AI assistant.

The chief technical officer of Wiz stated that DeepSeek promptly safeguarded the data following the notice from his organisation.

“It was removed in under an hour,” stated Ami Luttwak. “However, this was exceedingly easy to locate, leading us to believe we are not the sole discoverers.”

DeepSeek did not promptly respond to a request for comment.

DeepSeek’s rapid success after the introduction of its AI helper has exhilarated China and incited concern in America. The Chinese company’s evident capacity to rival OpenAI’s skills at a significantly reduced cost has raised concerns regarding the viability of the business models and profit margins of U.S. AI behemoths like Nvidia and Microsoft.

By Monday, it surpassed the U.S. competitor ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s App Store, prompting a worldwide decline in technology stocks.

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WhatsApp launches bulk channel management functionality

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WhatsApp has initiated testing of a bulk channel administration feature on iOS for select beta users, enabling the simultaneous selection of many channels, hence enhancing the efficiency of managing following channels.

This essential update enables users to perform bulk activities, including muting many channels simultaneously, designating them as read, and altering notifications. If the chosen channels are muted, users will now have the option to activate notifications. Users can swiftly silence unmuted channels in one action.

Additionally, this feature enables users to unfollow many channels simultaneously, thereby optimizing the process of decluttering their channel list. This change is particularly beneficial for users that oversee numerous subscriptions, as reported by WABetaInfo.

Previously, users were required to manage each channel individually, rendering tasks such as muting or designating channels as read laborious and time-consuming.

The functionality provides enhanced flexibility and control over channel subscriptions, enabling users to efficiently manage notifications. The solution streamlines laborious operations for consumers who subscribe to numerous channels, hence enhancing their entire experience.

Accessibility
The bulk management feature is presently accessible exclusively to a limited number of beta testers who installed the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS using the TestFlight application. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, plans to expand the feature’s availability to a larger user base in the next weeks.

This update demonstrates WhatsApp’s dedication to enhancing user experience by offering a clear and efficient method for managing channels and notifications.

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Pakistani internet slowdown: ongoing submarine cable issue

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Even after two weeks, the global submarine cable AAA-1 problem that was discovered on January 2 near Qatar has not been fixed, causing sluggish internet connection in several Pakistani towns.

According to a representative for Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the issue has affected customers’ capacity to effectively access social media applications and browse the online. Even with initiatives to fix the problem, social networking sites still lag during busy times.

Internet traffic has been redirected via alternate channels to lessen the impact, and more capacity has been set up to stabilize the service.

The PTCL representative promised that “Internet service across the country is operating normally, and there will be no issues with web browsing,” noting that social media applications’ lag is common during

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