Opinion: WhatsApp is a lifeline for two billion users. Facebook isn’t doing enough to protect it

By beating out competitors to rapidly grow its user base, Facebook’s "family of apps” - Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp - has amassed a reported more than 3.5 billion active monthly users. In return, the company should make every effort to ensure continuity of WhatsApp, which has been connecting billions of users, many mired in precarious life conditions. — Reuters

WhatsApp has become a lifeline for humanitarian aid and preserving ties between families torn asunder — making this month's hours-long shutdown of the app, alongside other Facebook products, more than a mere inconvenience.

Among Lebanon’s Syrian refugee households in 2017, 84% used WhatsApp to relay their needs to international organisations. The United Nations Development Program notes that real-time data shared by immigrants through the app is invaluable in bringing humanitarian aid to those in crisis, allowing continued communication between WhatsApp contacts after border crossings and with new phone numbers. Notices of safe zones or food and aid distribution points are shared rapidly.