What you need to know
- Telegram gained 70 million new users during the Facebook and WhatsApp outage, according to Telegram's founder.
- WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram went down for several hours on October 4, 2021.
Facebook's services, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger, went down for several hours on October 4, 2021. The outage sent people to other social media sites to share jokes about the services being down, but it also drove people to sign up for alternatives that aren't powered by Facebook. According to Telegram founder Pavel Durov, 70 million people signed up for Telegram during the Facebook outage.
Durov said that he was proud of how the Telegram team handled the "unprecedented growth" (via TechCrunch):
The daily growth rate of Telegram exceeded the norm by an order of magnitude, and we welcomed over 70 million refugees from other platforms in one day. I am proud of how our team handled the unprecedented growth because Telegram continued to work flawlessly for the vast majority of our users. That said, some users in the Americas may have experienced slower speed than usual as millions of users from these continents rushed to sign up for Telegram at the same time.
During the outage, our senior editor Jez Corden suggested people switch to Telegram.
Now is your chance to switch to Telegram.Now is your chance to switch to Telegram.— Jez (@JezCorden) October 4, 2021October 4, 2021
Telegram tops our list of the best WhatsApp alternatives. It's a free communication app that supports several of the same features as WhatsApp, including messaging, group chats, audio calls, and video calls.
This free app is one of the most popular alternatives to WhatsApp. It supports messaging, group chats, audio calls, and video calls. It also lets people send messages and videos to each other.
