UAE residents tweet out frustration over FB, WhatsApp outage

Dubai - The WhatsApp hashtag garnered nearly a million tweets within two hours of the outage.

UAE residents have also been affected by the global outage of some Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp features on Wednesday.
Many social media users shared their frustration of not being able to use voice notes or download content on WhatsApp and that their news feeds on Facebook and Instagram was not loading.
The WhatsApp hashtag garnered nearly a million tweets within two hours of the outage.
#Facebookdown and #instagrandown also generated tens of thousands of tweets in UAE alone.
Facebook, owner of WhatsApp and Instagram, issued a statement on their Twitter page, which said: "We're aware that some people are having trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps. We're sorry for the trouble and are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. #facebookdown."
A social media user in Dubai, Iram Rizvi, told Khaleej Times: "I'm struggling with Instagram. I couldn't sign in and then I was told that my password was changed. Then, I thought maybe someone stole my password. I changed my password as well, but then my husband told me that it's a global outage.
"We're all so used to social media, so it feels really strange when we don't have access to it. Social media is our window to the world and it is how we get to know what's happening. If social media is down we feel very cut out from the world."
Ayesha Sohail is the owner of a Facebook group, called UAE Fusion Socialites, which has over 18,000 followers - mainly UAE residents.
She was inundated with text messages from the members who were unable to post on the group.
"I am unable to receive messages on WhatsApp, I couldn't approve any of the posts of Facebook and people are wondering what's going on. They were messaging me to ask if I could approve, but Facebook wasn't even loading for me," Sohail said. "It's very frustrating. There are thousands of members in our group, majority of whom use this group very actively."
Twitter seems to be the popular social media alternative for users, as there were 685,000 tweets about 'WhatsApp' as of Wednesday night. '#Facebookdown' and '#Instagramdown' were also in the top trends.
Twitter also sent out a Tweet, saying: "Sorry we can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the Tweet."
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com