Overview
- A global service disruption on Monday, August 3, 2026 prevented many users from sending photos, stickers and other multimedia while Downdetector showed a sharp rise in reports beginning around mid‑afternoon.
- At the same time thousands of people opened the app to find messages saying their number was suspended or 'under review' and some users were prevented from using the service.
- Some accounts were restored after people used WhatsApp’s in‑app 'request review' option but a subset of users reported suspensions lasting 24 hours or longer.
- Meta has acknowledged and worked to fix the incident in limited statements but has not provided a detailed technical explanation linking the outage to the account reviews or confirming an automated moderation error.
- The interruption disrupted personal and business communications in multiple countries and leaves users advised to use the official app, submit the in‑app appeal, avoid paid recovery services and watch for a fuller report from Meta.