If you’re having trouble sending messages in the secure messaging app Signal, it may be due to technical difficulties the company says are affecting the app on Friday.
Signal allows for secure and encrypted video, voice, and text communication, but users were greeted this morning with messages that failed to send. Signal confirmed the issue on its official Twitter account with the promise that it would “restore service as quickly as possible.”
Signal is experiencing technical difficulties. We are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible.
— Signal (@signalapp) January 15, 2021
In the last week, Signal reported a surge of new users to its app following a recommendation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a new WhatsApp privacy policy that may have driven users away from the Facebook-owned messaging service and into the arms of more secure options like Signal and competitor Telegram.
How it started vs how it’s going 😅 pic.twitter.com/ERiFpZUz6c
— Signal (@signalapp) January 14, 2021
There may not be a direct connection between the mass influx of new users and the outage, but it does guarantee that more people are going to be affected. We’ll keep an eye on the problem and update when Signal has more to share.
