Signal is facing an outage globally — thousands of users are reporting errors to site status tracker DownDetector, and Gadgets 360 confirmed this for ourselves as well. Although you can open the app and send messages, nothing is actually being delivered right now. The issues seem to have started about one hour ago at 8.30pm IST on Friday, and appears to be a global outage.
If you open Signal right now, you will see a new banner which explains that the app is facing some technical difficulties, although there are no additional details in the banner as of now. However, it does say that the team is working to restore service as quickly as possible.
Although there has been no update on what the issue is, it is possible that the issue has to do with the huge number of users who have been signing on to Signal, as people are moving away from WhatsApp in droves after it announced a new privacy policy, and said that if users did not accept, then their accounts would have to be removed. Signal was downloaded by 17.8 million users over the past seven days, a 62-fold rise from the prior week. Brian Acton, who co-founded WhatsApp before selling it to Facebook and then co-founding the Signal Foundation, said that the expansion in recent days had been “vertical”.
Switching to Signal? 5 Tips and Tricks You Need to Know
India has been one of the markets where Signal has added a huge number of new users, so it’s not surprising that Acton said in an interview with NDTV, “what’s really awesome is India is such a strong representation of the world that if you build for India you build for the world.”
Thousands of users reported problems with Signal in under an hour
Both Signal and Telegram have seen a huge influx of users as a result, with Signal becoming the number one messaging app in many markets. A tweet by Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike from earlier in the week had noted that the entire small non-profit team at Signal was working late nights and weekends to keep Signal running.
Signal’s Acton also said the company was working to improve its video and group chat functions, allowing it to compete better with WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and other conferencing apps that have become vital to day-to-day life over the past year. Signal is looking to hire more staff as it seeks to bolster the service and supporting infrastructure, he added on Wednesday.
Does WhatsApp’s new privacy policy spell the end for your privacy? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.
