Update 12:15 PM PST: Messenger is back up for me personally, although service interruption reports are still rolling in from others around the globe.

One day after launching a new feature allowing people to delete messages on Messenger, Facebook’s app seems to have temporarily deleted its ability to function.

Facebook Messenger is down, with 2,535 reports in the last ten minutes on Down Detector, and multiple reports from around the world on Twitter.




Facebook Messenger is downJOHN KOETSIER
The outage seems to be global, with people reporting trouble connecting to Messenger in Western Europe especially, but challenges in California and Washington/British Columbia as well.

Messenger is generally reliable, but has had more issues recently, with four outages in September alone.

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The recent update, a “Remove for Everyone” feature, give users 10 minutes to unsend or delete a sent message. It’s intended to save you from embarrassment or trouble for an ill-advised message, and it is just in the process of getting rolled out globally.

(Initially, on CEO Mark Zuckerberg could use it.)

There’s no word yet on what caused the issue, or if the new feature has anything to do with it.

While Messenger is down, WhatsApp, Facebook’s other big messaging platform, is chugging along just fine.

Messenger has over 1.3 billion monthly active users, so even a short outage can affect a lot of people. WhatsApp, however, is slightly bigger: 1.5 billion monthly average users.

I forecast and analyze trends affecting the mobile ecosystem. I've been a journalist, analyst, and corporate executive, and have chronicled the rise of the mobile…MORE
John Koetsier is a journalist, analyst, author, and speaker. Follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.