A Brazilian court order blocking access to WhatsApp has been reduced to 12 hours, but it has already meant a boon for rival service Telegram
A judge in Brazil has ordered cell phone carriers to block access to the calling and texting service WhatsApp for 48 hours beginning early Thursday morning, after the company reportedly failed to respond to a court order in a drug-trafficking case earlier this year. Later in the day, the Sao Paolo high court ruled that service should be restored after just 12 hours of outage, citing "constitutional principles" and the services "millions of affected users."