WHATSAPP HAS BEEN blocked for a second time in Brazil after a court judge ordered it to be inaccessible for 72 hours.

The reason for the blocking was down to Facebook not handing over information requested in a drug-trafficking investigation.

The app, which has more than a billion users worldwide, is widely used in Brazil due to the country having the highest fees for texts and calls.

While the ban is still underway, one of its rivals Telegram is benefiting as more than a million people have signed up to the service since the ban started.

This isn’t the first time Telegram has benefited from WhatsApp’s misfortune. Back in 2014 after WhatsApp announced its deal with Facebook and its servers went down, Telegram saw more than eight million people sign up in four days.

The same outage also benefited another messaging app LINE, which saw two million users sign up in 24 hours.

WhatsApp was first blocked for 72 hours in December for similar reasons. In March, a Facebook executive based in the country was arrested for not complying with the court’s request. He was released the next day.

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