Published by maria gbaf
Posted on October 6, 2021
2 min readLast updated: January 31, 2026
Add as preferred source on Google
Telegram gained 70 million users during Facebook's six-hour outage, showcasing the need for diverse messaging platforms.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Messaging app Telegram gained over 70 million new users during Monday’s Facebook outage, its founder Pavel Durov said on Tuesday, as people worldwide were left without key messaging services for nearly six hours.
Facebook blamed its outage, which kept its 3.5 billion users from accessing services such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, on a faulty configuration change.
“The daily growth rate of Telegram exceeded the norm by an order of magnitude, and we welcomed over 70 million refugees from other platforms in one day,” Durov wrote on his Telegram channel.
Durov said some users in the Americas may have experienced slower speeds as millions rushed to sign up at the same time, but that the service worked as usual for the majority.
EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said the outage demonstrated the repercussions of relying on just a few big players and underscored the need for more rivals.
Russia said the incident showed Moscow was right to develop its own sovereign internet platforms and social networks.
WhatsApp’s nearly six-hour long outage on Monday hit trading of assets from cryptocurrencies to Russian oil, market players said, although a quick shift to alternative platforms such as Telegram limited severe disruption.
(Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Jan Harvey)
The article discusses Telegram gaining 70 million new users during a Facebook outage.
The outage left users without access to key services like WhatsApp and Instagram for nearly six hours.
WhatsApp's outage affected trading of assets, but Telegram's availability limited severe disruptions.
Explore more articles in the Trading category
