Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologises for “disruption” caused by its social media services going down for nearly six hours. An internal technical issue, affecting over 3.5bn users across the world, took Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp offline.
The incident began at around 16:00 GMT on Monday, with services eventually coming back online at about 22:00 in the evening.
The latest issues are likely to increase scrutiny of the technology giant’s reach.
Billions of people were without access to social media tools or could not log into services requiring a Facebook login. For hours, users went without communication services they rely on to stay in touch with family and friends.
Meanwhile, businesses connecting with customers via social media faced the possibility of an unexpected financial hit.
According to business website Fortune’s tracking software, the issue also affected Mr Zuckerberg. At one point he lost an estimated $6bn (£4.4bn) from his personal fortune as Facebook shares plummeted.
Downdetector, which tracks website outages, recorded its highest ever number of reports. They received news of around 10.6 million problems worldwide.
Facebook blame the outage on a faulty configuration change. The firm say it impacted its internal tools as well as websites and apps. This included Facebook’s internal emails and staff passes.
In “meltdown”
Reports suggest Facebook headquarters being in “meltdown” as even those “trying to figure out” what was wrong could not access the building.
According to The New York Times, a group managed to gain access to a data centre in California and reset the servers, thus resolving the problem. Although the company has not confirmed this for themselves.
Facebook is working to understand what occurred so it can make its “infrastructure more resilient”. Tech experts describe the issue as the same as if the social media giant fell off the internet’s map, being unable to find.
Meanwhile, the firm reassures people that there is “no evidence that user data was compromised”.
However, Facebook is already facing a difficult time at the moment, with increasing pressure over its reach and impact on society. The outage could not have come at a worse time for the company.
Just days ago, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed how the social media giant prioritise “growth over safety”. She will testify on Tuesday at a hearing regarding “Protecting Kids Online”. This hearing will look at the firm’s research into the affect of Instagram on young users’ mental health.
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