WhatsApp has restricted video status from 30 seconds to 15 seconds in India. The Facebook-owned online messaging platform took the decision to cut strain on Internet networks during the coronavirus lockdown in the country as millions of people have started sharing videos in Status.
This update was spotted by WABetaInfo on Sunday.
“You can no longer send videos to WhatsApp Status if they are longer than 16 seconds: only videos having a duration of 15 seconds will be allowed. This is happening in India and it’s probably an initiative to reduce the traffic on the server infrastructures,” WABetaInfo tweeted.
The company has over 400 million user base in India. In the recent few years, WhatsApp has become one of the primary means of communication.
The online messaging platform is asking users to crop any video longer than 15 seconds time duration and only then it can be posted as Status.
At the time of launch, WhatsApp allowed 90 seconds to three minutes of video and if the existing video is larger than 16MB it gave an option to trim the length of the video before sending it.
Later, the limit was reduced to 30 seconds.
WhatsApp has seen a 40 per cent increase in usage globally, according to a study by Kantar, a data and consulting company.