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Telegram signs up 70M users during recent Facebook ecosystem outage

Date: October 08, 2021 Sunil Jha Sunil Jha
Telegram signs up 70M users during recent Facebook ecosystem outage 
Telegram, the cross-platform and cloud-based instant messaging service, has reportedly claimed to have signed up more than 70 million new members during the recent Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outage that lasted for six-hour.



Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, revealed the immense spike in what he described as a historic surge in user registration and engagement.



Facebook's 3.5 billion users were unable to use its applications, including Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, due to an incorrect configuration update, disclosed the company.



As consumers scrambled to find a replacement for Facebook applications during the said outage, Telegram and other chat applications were inundated with new users.



Durov stated that he is proud of the way the Telegram team effectively handled the extraordinary growth as the social media platform continues to function flawlessly for the overwhelming majority of its users.



However, some users in the Americas may have encountered slower than usual speeds because millions of people from the continents raced to join Telegram all at the same time.



Just earlier this year, Telegram had announced that it had achieved 500 million monthly users.



Meanwhile, during the Facebook outage, Signal, which competes with Telegram and WhatsApp, also announced that it had gained new users in the millions.



However, this is not the first time Signal and Telegram have benefitted at the expense of their primary rival. These two applications drew a large number of users earlier this year when WhatsApp was struggling to justify its new privacy policy.



Santosh Janardhan, Vice President of Engineering, Facebook, revealed in an updated blog post earlier this week that the firm's engineers accidentally fired a command that disconnected FB data centers from the rest of the globe.



According to Facebook, the outage removed the tools that its engineers would typically use to investigate and resolve such failures.



The firm dispatched a team of engineers to the site of its data centers to troubleshoot and reboot the systems, but security systems made it difficult for them to physically access the server buildings.



Source credit: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-outage-whatsapp-telegram-b1933042.html

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Sunil Jha

Sunil Jha has been a part of the content industry for close to two years. Having previously worked as a voice over artist and sportswriter, he now focuses on writing articles for newsorigins.com, across a slew of topics, ranging from technology to trade and finance. With a business-oriented educational background, Sunil brings forth the expertise of deep-dive research and a strategic approach in his write ups.