WhatsApp is down and the internet is freaking out

This is not a drill.

WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned app that 1.2 billion people count on to communicate, is down. Like, in many places it's totally not working. And the internet is not pleased.

According to Down Detector, service problems started around 1 p.m. PT on May 3 and were ongoing at time of publication. Large swaths of Europe, Brazil, and parts of the United States appear to be suffering the brunt of the outages.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Frustrated users took to Twitter to vent.

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A WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed that the company's service is experiencing problems.

“WhatsApp is aware of the issue and working to fix it as soon as possible,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

We'll update this post when we know more but, in the meantime, good luck out there.

UPDATE: May 3, 2017, 4:58 p.m. PDT You can finally breathe a sigh of relief, because WhatsApp is back! A company spokesperson confirmed the news via email.

"Earlier today, WhatsApp users in all parts of the world were unable to access WhatsApp for a few hours," the spokesperson wrote. "We have now fixed the issue and apologize for the inconvenience."

Phew.