Will WhatsApp stay ‘inaccessible’ at night? Know truth behind viral message

The viral message, purpotedly claiming to be issued by the government, claimed that a WhatsApp user's account would be deactivated within 48 hours, if they do not forward the same message.

A message doing the rounds on the internet that the Indian government has ordered WhatsApp to suspend its services between 11.30pm and 6am has been flagged as “fake” by Press Information Bureau's (PIB) Fact Check team.

The fake message doing the rounds on the internet claimed that a “monthly charge” of ₹499 would be applicable to WhatsApp users to activate their accounts. (File photo)

The viral message, purportedly claiming to be issued by the government, claimed that a user's account would be deactivated within 48 hours if they do not forward the same message. 

The message claimed that a “monthly charge” of ₹499 would apply to WhatsApp users to activate their accounts.

The Fact Check team of PIB debunked all these claims in a post on Twitter, saying the government hasn't made any such announcement and cautioned the people to refrain from engaging with fraudulent links.

The fake news surfaced after social media platforms, such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram were hit by a major outage across the globe earlier this month.

Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis for Kentik Inc, told news agency Reuters that the “DNS routes that Facebook makes available” to the “networking world” were unavailable.

WhatsApp also blocked at least two million accounts in India between May 15 and June 15 using automated technology, a compliance report released by the Facebook-owned messaging platform revealed in July.