WhatsApp Web appeared to be down on Wednesday, May 20, across the United States and some parts in India too with multiple users reporting a service disruption and unexpected redirects to Facebook. Hundreds of users complained that they were redirected to the login page of Facebook, another of WhatsApp's parent company, Meta's platform, as they tried to scan their passkey through the mobile app to log into WhatsApp web.
Notably, WhatsApp users across the world reported outages, including Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore.
Downdetector, online platform that provides real-time information on status of various websites and services, confirmed reported outages in the past hour. In India, most people reported issues with its app at 5:16 am(IST) while residents in the United States encountered problem with the website at mostly around 5:12 am (IST). “User reports show possible problems with Whatsapp,” the website states.
Nearly 47% US users reported issues with website, 22% blamed app, 19% complained of issues with the logging in, Downdetector data shows. Over 200 people reported issues with WhatsApp Web on DownDetector in the US.
However, WhatsApp has not yet issued a statement on the problem but the outpouring of outage on social media clearly indicates that a significant number of people faced the issue.
According to online account of most users, WhatsApp desktop and web versions malfunctioned. When one tries to access WhatsApp web then they are directed to Facebook page asking to login.
A user wrote, “Whatsapp app became face, whatsapp web is redirecting to facebook and also crash and not loading. WTF is happening?”
Another user remarked, “If you open whatsapp at this moment, it is like i'm in facebook, and literally if you open whatsapp desktop app it runs facebook by himself.”
A third comment read, “Good to see it's not just me having the redirect to FB problem. Meta seriously sucks.”
A fourth user stated,"I reinstalled WhatsApp, but it keeps on asking me to log in to my Facebook account. Why is that so?"
A fifth user remarked, “Opened WhatsApp Web, got teleported to Facebook. DNS engineer fighting for his life.”
A sixth user asked, “Is WhatsApp Web having issues again? I'm logging in but it's redirecting me to Facebook.”
A seventh user wrote, “Why is it that when I open WhatsApp on my laptop, Facebook opens instead? Is WhatsApp Web down?”
WhatsApp boasted around 3 to 3.3 billion monthly active users globally in 2025–2026. However, the social networking platform does not officially provide information related to WhatsApp Web user numbers. In the US, WhatsApp has nearly 100–124 million monthly active users.
For about a decade, Livemint—News Desk has been a credible source for authentic and timely news, and well-researched analysis on national news, business, personal finance, corporates, politics and geopolitics. We bring the latest updates on all the listed companies on BSE and NSE, startups, mutual funds, Union ministries, geopolitics, and untapped human interest stories from around the world, helping our readers to stay informed on the latest developments around the globe. Our Coverage Areas 1. Companies: Comprehensive news and analysis on listed and unlisted companies, corporate announcements, corporate chatter, C-suite, business trends, hiring alerts, layoffs, work-life balance, world's top billionaires and richest and more. 2. Personal finance: Insights into mutual funds, small savings schemes like - PPF, SSY, post office savings scheme, stock to watch, personal loans, credit cards, top bank FDs, real estate, income tax and more. 3. Politics: Comprehensive coverage of general elections, state elections and bypolls, Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha, Parliament, PMO, PIB, finance ministry, home ministry, among other union ministries and government departments. 4. National News: From metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and e to untapped stories from rural India, we cover human interest, health, education, crime and courts, and law and order, among other areas of public interest. 5. Economy: In-depth analysis of India's macro and micro-economic indicators like- GDP, inflation, forex, fiscal deficit, current account deficit, interest rate cycle, economic recovery, RBI circulars, indirect taxes, GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy imports, exports and everything that impacts Indian economy. 6. Geopolitics: Well-rounded and deeply researched coverage on US News, Oval Office European Union, Ukraine Russia War, middle-east crisis, royal families and global leaders like - Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping and premiers of other leading economies in the world. Meet the Team 1. Gulam Jeelani, Political Affairs Editor 2. Sugam Singhal, Senior Assistant Editor 3. Chanchal, Assistant Editor 4. Sanchari Ghosh, Chief Content Producer 5. Pratik Prashant Mukane, Chief Content Producer 6. Sayantani Biswas, Chief Content Producer 7. Ravi Hari, Deputy Chief Content Producer 8. Garvit Bhirani, Deputy Chief Content Producer 9. Akriti Anand, Senior Content Producer 10. Jocelyn Felix Fernandes, Senior Content Producer 11. Swastika Das Sharma, Content Producer 12. Mausam Jha, Content Producer 13. Riya R Alex, Trainee Content Producer
Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.