Why did Snapchat go down?
Users across the world report issue with photo sharing app
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Snapchat, the popular photo sharing app used by millions of people around the world, unexpectedly stopped working on Wednesday, preventing users from being able to send messages.
The Down Detector website registered tens of thousands of reports from users saying they were unable to load chats or access the site’s bitmojis.
The social app responded in a tweet, writing: “We’re aware that some Snapchatters are having issues using the app right now - hang tight, we’re looking into it!”
It is not currently clear what has caused the outage but The Independent reached out to Snapchat for comment and was told that an internal investigation had suggested the issue was not universal and that many services were beginning to return.
The app duly began to function normally a short time after, meaning the glitch was only a concern for a few hours.
Facebook suffered a much more significant outage on 4 October, which also impacted WhatsApp and Instagram, and saw the social network fall out of action for between six to seven hours.
The incident that cost the company millions of dollars in revenue and saw thousands of frustrated posters flock to Twitter and Snapchat instead.
Twitter was again overrun with memes on Wednesday during the Snapchat issue, particularly borrowing scenes of confusion and desolation from SpongeBob SquarePants and Squid Game, as people expressed their relief that the app not working was not because their own wi-fi was faulty.
Several users heaved huge, public sighs of relief that the reason their friend was not replying to them was because of the glitch and not as a result of something unwise they had said in an earlier message.
“Was starting to get worried that she didn’t like me, thankfully it’s just that snap is down,” one person wrote.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments