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CLAIM
A message has been doing the rounds on social media with the claim that the central government has declared online messaging app WhatApp to be “off from 11:30 pm to 6:00 am daily”.
The viral message reads, “What’s app will b off from 11:30 pm to 6:00 am daily declared by central govt. Message from narendra modi (PM) we have had an over usage of user names on whatsapp Messenger. We are requesting all users to forward this message to their entire contact list. If you do not forward this message, we will take it as your account is invalid and it will be deleted within the next 48 hours. DO NOT ignore my words or whatsapp will no longer recognise your activation. If you wish to re-activate your account after it has been deleted, a charge of 499.00 will be added to your monthly bill. We are also aware of the issue involving the pictures updates not showing. We are working diligently at fixing this problem and it will be up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation from the modi team. WhatsApp is going to cost you money soon. The only way that it will stay free is if you are a frequent user i.e. you have at least 50 people you are chatting with. To become a frequent user send this message to 10 people who receive it (2 ticks) and your WhatsApp logo will change color. Send this to 8 people to activate the new whatsapp.. Saturday morning whatsapp will become chargeable. If you have at least 10 contacts send them this message. In this way we will see that you are an avid user and your logo will become blue (?) and will remain free. (As discussed in the paper today. Whatsapp will cost 0.01€ per message. Send this message to 10 people. When you do the light will turn blu otherwise whatsapp will activate billing. (sic)”
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TRUE OR FALSE?
This message is entirely false. Neither will WhatsApp be closed from 11:30 pm to 6:00 am, nor has the central government made any such announcement.
For verification, The Quint spoke to WhatsApp spokesperson who confirmed that the information in the viral message was completely fake.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
The Quint also found out that messages of similar nature have gone viral time and again with users on social media claiming that WhatsApp will not be functional during night hours. These messages have earlier been debunked by Hoax or Fact and other websites.
Furthermore, any policy change related to WhatsApp is updated by the company on their blog, which is not the case here.
Millions of users worldwide, including in India, were left clueless on Wednesday evening. 3 July, when Facebook and its family of apps, including WhatsApp and photo-sharing platform Instagram, entered a global outage.
The fake message has seemingly made a comeback after the outage.