At the end of October 2021, several news outlets published articles warning that WhatsApp users with older smartphones will not be able to use the popular chat app after November 1, 2021.

For example, the UK viral news site Unilad reported, “WhatsApp will be blocked on millions of phones next week.”

It is true that from November 1, 2021, many older devices with older operating systems will no longer support WhatsApp. According to WhatsApp website, the devices that support the app are:

• Android under OS 4.1 and later
• iPhone running iOS 10 and later
• KaiOS 2.5.0 and newer, including JioPhone and JioPhone 2

This means that if you have a device with an older operating system than those listed above, you will no longer be able to use WhatsApp on that device after November 1, 2021. WhatsApp declared that users with older devices will need to “upgrade to a supported device”, or save your chat history before this date.

A spokesperson for Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, told Snopes via email that the tech giant regularly reviews aging hardware and software and “will periodically remove ongoing support for older systems with the least amount of money. ‘users’, and that’s the norm for tech companies to do so for older devices and software with a declining user base.

The spokesperson said the number of affected users was not in the “millions,” but said he could not provide a figure for the number of affected people.

WhatsApp is a widely used chat application internationally, with an estimated user base of over 2 billion.