Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram are affected by a worldwide outage.
Facebook and its Instagram, WhatsApp platforms were all affected by a global outage Monday. It lasted for more than three hours. Employees also experienced problems with their internal systems. Service has yet to be restored.
The company didn’t say what caused the outage, which occurred at around 11:40 AM. ET. Websites and applications often experience outages of varying sizes and durations, but they are rare that cause long-lasting disruptions.
Doug Madory, Kentik Inc’s director for internet analysis, said, “This is incredible.” The previous major internet outage that knocked many top websites offline in June took less than an hour. Fastly, the content-delivery firm that suffered blamed the problem on a software bug caused by a customer.
Facebook’s public statement so far was a tweet acknowledging that “some people are having problems accessing (the Facebook app)” and that it was working towards restoring access. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri stated that it felt like a snow day in regard to the internal failings.
The impact was worse for Facebook’s 3 billion users. They were able to log on to numerous other websites, order food, and connect with affinity groups.
It also revealed that no social media platform could replace Twitter, Telegram, and Signal. Facebook’s request Monday to have a revised antitrust complaint by the Federal Trade Commission against it be dismissed due to fierce competition from other services seems a bit hollow.
The exact cause of the outage is still unknown. Madory claimed that Facebook may have created “authoritative domain routes” to allow other internet users to connect with its properties. These routes are part and parcel of the internet’s Domain Name System. This is the central component of the internet that directs traffic. Without Facebook publishing, its routes to the public internet, web addresses, and apps would be unable to find it.
Many people depend on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram as their primary means of communication. If they lose access, it can leave them open to being exploited by criminals. Rachel Tobac is a hacker and CEO for SocialProof Security.
She stated that “they don’t know where to contact people in their lives without it.” “They’re more vulnerable to social engineers because they’re so desperate for communication,” Tobac explained that people had been sent emails promising to restore their social networks accounts by clicking on a malicious hyperlink that could reveal their personal data.
Jake Williams, chief tech officer at cybersecurity firm BreachQuest, said that while foul play cannot completely be ruled out but that there was a good chance that the outage was “an operational problem” caused by human error.
Madory claimed that there was no indication that Facebook was the responsible party and dismissed the possibility that another major internet company, such as telecom, could have accidentally rewritten major routing tables that are affected by Facebook.
Madory said, “No one else has announced these routes.”
Computer scientists suggested that a bug in Facebook’s routing system may be the cause. Steven Bellovin, a Colombia University computer scientist, said that he expected Facebook to first attempt an automated recovery. It could go down in flames if that fails. To do so, it would need to make manual changes at data centers outside of its network, he said.
Bellovin tweeted that it came down to “running a large, even according to Internet standards, the distributed network is very difficult even if you have the best.”
Facebook was already experiencing a separate crisis. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, gave The Wall Street Journal documents that showed the company’s awareness about the dangers it caused by its products. Haugen was made public by CBS’s 60 Minutes program on Sunday. She is scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee this Tuesday.
Haugen had also anonymously filed federal complaints against Facebook, alleging its own research shows that it magnifies hate, misinformation, leads to increased polarization, as well as how Instagram, in particular, can harm teenage girls’ mental health.
The Journal’s stories called “The Facebook Files” painted a picture showing a company that values growth over the public good. Facebook attempted to downplay the findings. Nick Clegg was the vice president of policy, public affairs, and communications at Facebook. He wrote Friday to employees that social media had made a significant impact on society and that Facebook is often where this debate takes place.
Twitter, meanwhile, responded from the company’s main Twitter address, posting “hello literally all” and jokes about the Facebook outage. Later, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, tweeted, “how many?”
