Brazil blocks WhatsApp for 48 hours over legal dispute

WhatsApp had been suspended for 48 hours on Thursday after the company failed to comply with a court order to provide investigators with information relating to a criminal court case.

The ban which was effective from midnight Wednesday, snarling communications for many of its 100 million users in Brazil for about 12 hours.

WhatsApp has 100m personal users in Brazil so it resulted in a sort of outrage after its text message and Internet telephone services were interrupted.

A court order that temporarily banned WhatsApp in Brazil has been cut short after a judge found the ruling unreasonable.

Judge Xavier de Souza from the 11th criminal court of Sao Paulo overturned the ruling saying that the ban was not “reasonable”.

Mark Zuckerberg, who heads WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook, said in a Facebook post that the case was related to the company’s attempt to guard customers’ data.

Telegram, a rival messaging system, said that it received 1 million downloads in Brazil in one day because of the WhatsApp outage.

In response, Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook, “WhatsApp is now back online in Brazil!” Brazilian telecoms have urged the government to crack down on WhatsApp, arguing that its free voice call service is unregulated and illegal, though officials have yet to implement new regulations.

In a statement on Facebook, WhatsApp chief executive Jan Koum had criticised the initial decision.

The ban also led to the service being interrupted for users in Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina.

But Brazilian media said WhatsApp was requested to supply information on communicating by way of a suspected gang member who’s alleged to have used prohibited action to be organised by WhatsApp.