New Delhi, October 7: A viral message is doing rounds on social media platforms claiming that the government has issued an order where WhatsApp, the social messaging app, will be closed for people every night for 6 hours 30 minutes. The viral message, which was widely circulated by people claimed that as per order by the Central Government, WhatsApp will be closed from 11:30 pm to 6 am. The fake and misleading claim further added that the ones who don't forward this message, their WhatsApp account will be closed. Moreover, a monthly charge will be applicable to activate it again. 

Dismissing the fake claims, a fact check by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) said that the viral message that claims that WhatsApp will be closed from 11.30 pm to 6 am, is fake news. The PIB issued a clarification saying that the government has not issued any such order in this regard. The PIB fact check urged people not to fall prey to such false and baseless information. Fake Message Claiming COVID-19 Is Bacteria That Can Be Cured With Aspirin Goes Viral, PIB Fact Check Debunks It.

Here's the tweet by PIB:

The fake news comes days after social media platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram suffered a major outage on Friday night. The services resumed after some time. Many WhatsApp users reported the inability to send and receive messages, while Instagram too was down during the period. As per details by the outage tracking website, DownDetector, the issues started at around 11:30 PM on October 4, and affected users across the globe. While WhatsApp isn’t sending or receiving messages, Instagram shows “couldn’t refresh the feed.”

Fact check

WhatsApp Will Be Prohibited in India From 11:30 PM to 6 AM As per Govt Order? PIB Fact Check Reveals Truth Behind Fake Viral Message
Claim :

As per Govt order, WhatsApp will be shut from 11:30 pm to 6 am, the account will be closed for not forwarding the viral message.

Conclusion :

The claim is fake and completely misleading. PIB Fact Check stated that the Central Government has not given any such order.

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(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 07, 2021 05:13 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).