With WhatsApp image downloads and FB image downloads being affected for a couple of hours on Wednesday night, fake messages have become viral in less than 24hrs.  One of these messages claims that due to a Central Government initiative the usage policy has changed and WhatsApp will be down from 11:30pm till 6am.  In what was technical glitch in global servers for a few hours, it has caused panic among users and several versions of fake messages are being shared on WhatsApp.

As per official reports, the servers were down due to technical issues and these messages are completely fabricated and inaccurate. Messages on WhatsApp and shares on FB were still going through during the hours of the server glitch and only some media files and audio files were facing download problems.

The problem was reported on social media from users in South America and Europe, and India soon followed. FB Messenger, Instagram also suffered from this intermittent outage.

Facebook, in a message to the community, said, “Earlier today, some people and businesses experienced trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps and platforms. The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100 per cent for everyone. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

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In the morning today, however, users got messages saying that WhatsApp will be a paid services and usage will be restricted. Interestingly, the message circulated, has been signed by Google, which is in no way connected to FB or WhatsApp. The same message says that if anybody uses WhatsApp between 1130pm till 6am, they will be fined Rs 499 by Indian government.

Users, kindly ignore such messages as neither WhatsApp will be restricted nor will it be blocked or banned in India.