Facebook and its other sister applications, Instagram and WhatsApp, have been down for the best part of the day. It took some time for Facebook to respond, but they do now admit there is a problem. You’re damn right there is, their entire network is down!
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp became inaccessible for large numbers of people at about 5pm UK time and were still down at 9.30pm, with thedowndetector.comsite citing reports of problems from millions of social media users around the world. A map on the site showed, for instance, reports of outages from cities across the US, UK and Australia. – The Guardian[1]
Facebook are claiming this is a technical difficulty and technicians are working hard to get their servers back online.
A spokesperson for Facebook said: “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience.”
We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 4, 2021
The issues don’t seem to be just online, reports of Facebook employees being unable to gain access to work buildings due to keycard failures are also circulating:
Was just on phone with someone who works for FB who described employees unable to enter buildings this morning to begin to evaluate extent of outage because their badges weren’t working to access doors.
— Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) October 4, 2021
Media Blackout
Now, what would you do if you really wanted to stunt the flow of information?
Well, you could start by throttling the largest information sharing networks, I don’t know, like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It would certainly be a great start.
But what information exactly would you want to stunt?
Well, maybe it has something to do with the massive dump of data leaked from an ex-facebook employee which portrays Facebook as a profit driven beast with little regard for fairness and equality, an organisation that whistleblower Frances Haugen states is “paying for its profits with our safety”[2].
I’m not overly convinced on the connection to the Facebook leaks, nothing we don’t already know, or at least expect was revealed in the papers and to be honest, the conclusion being drawn by many media mouthpieces in regards to the papers is that Facebook are not doing enough censoring….. really?
So, could it be something else, something that is or has happened that ‘they’ do not want circulating too quickly, if at all?
While it is only Facebook, Instagram and WhatApp that are down, the event has flooded every other social media platform and media outlet of the story – finding anything about anything other than Facebook’s outage has been nigh on impossible.
At the very least, this outage should give us reason to ensure we have other forms of communication. Never put all your eggs in one basket, ensure you have multiple social network platforms to connect with, so in times like this, the information loop remains open.
Back Online
As I’ve been writing this, Facebook has come back online, let’s see if any further disruption awaits (we can only hope).
I’ll keep you posted if any further developments on this story occur.
Sources:
