Telegram gained over 70 million users in 1 day after Facebook outage
TL; DR
- According to its founder, Telegram gained over 70 million users in one day.
- The disclosure comes after WhatsApp and other Facebook services went offline this week.
On Monday, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were hit by a major outage, meaning users were unable to use these platforms for several hours. Of course, users flocked to alternative messaging platforms and it looks like Telegram was the big winner.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov claimed on his Telegram channel that the Facebook outage resulted in over 70 million people joining the platform in just one day.
“Telegram’s daily growth rate exceeded the norm by an order of magnitude and we welcomed over 70 million refugees from other platforms in one day,” Durov was quoted as saying on the broadcaster.
Telegram’s founder claimed the service worked “flawlessly” for most users, but added that some people in America may have experienced slower than usual speeds due to the increased load.
Still, this isn’t the first time the platform has gained a lot of users because Facebook / WhatsApp drops the ball. Facebook’s decision to change WhatsApp’s privacy policy in January resulted in many users trying Telegram. In fact, Durov reported that 25 million new users came on board in just 72 hours.
