Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
- Signal not working for you? You’re not alone, as the service featured a significant outage today.
- As of publishing, there are still many people worldwide who can’t access the service.
- The server outage likely has to do with a ton of new users coming to the platform as they run away from WhatsApp.
If you tried to message someone using Signal today, you may have faced some issues. No, it’s not your phone — it’s the service itself. Millions of people around the world also had problems at the same time, as it appears the app’s servers got overloaded.
Related: The five best encrypted messaging apps for Android
Reports of Signal not working are still coming in, but it appears that the worst is over, according to DownDetector. If you still can’t access the chat app, unfortunately, you’ll need to wait a bit longer for the server to get back on its feet.
Although we aren’t certain why this specific outage occurred, Signal has made it clear that it is seeing a huge influx of new users. The surge in adoption is due in no small part to people running away from WhatsApp after that Facebook-owned service updated its privacy policy.
Goodbye WhatsApp, hello Signal
We’ll need to wait until the company gives us an official reason why many folks found Signal not working today. However, it’s a sure bet the exodus away from WhatsApp had something to do with it.
Facebook announced last week that it had updated WhatsApp’s privacy policy. The update allows the social networking giant to lift user data from WhatsApp for its own use. This caused a public outcry and many people stopped using the platform on the spot.
See also: Here’s how WhatsApp shares your data with other Facebook brands
Lots of people likely migrated to Telegram, which is more popular than Signal. However, a recent tweet from Elon Musk promoted Signal as being a good option, and users hammered that app’s servers pretty hard.
It will probably be a rocky road for a while during this transition, but Signal should be back up and running very soon.
