Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp Go Down and People Turn To Twitter

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are currently down with people across the world reporting an outage.

The outage is believed to have hit at about 4pm.

More than 46,397 WhatsApp users reported issues using the global instant messaging service from about 4pm UK time.

The three apps – which are all owned by Facebook, and run on shared infrastructure – all completely stopped working. Other products that are part of the same family of apps, such as Facebook Workplace, also stopped working.

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.

— Facebook (@Facebook) October 4, 2021

The WhatsApp and Instagram apps continued to work but did not show new content, including any messages sent or received during the problems.

Facebook’s outages happen relatively rarely but tend to be vast in their impact, not least because they affect three of the world’s biggest apps.

What is interesting is the immediate reaction of people to go to Twitter to find what is going on and find that Facebook themself are using Twitter to keep people informed. This says a lot about the importance of Twitter to people that think that is not as relevant anymore.

In a leaked transcript published in The Verge in 2019, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg note that such outages are a “big deal”. Any problems can often lead people to start using competitors instead and noted that it can take “months” to win back trust and get people back on Facebook’s platforms – if they come back at all

Facebook's communications executive Andy Stone has tweeted to say the social media giant is aware of the current issues and is "working to get things back to normal."

As the only app that doesn't seem to have been affected by the disruption, Twitter has become the friendly host for all those wanting to check they are not the only ones struggling with the other platforms.

*Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram are down*
Everyone coming back to twitter:#WhatsApppic.twitter.com/FawLKTbuPy

— ︎ ︎Ꭺßԃμℓ QμᎪ∂Ꭺя (@TheNameIsAbdul) October 4, 2021

Instagram.com is flashing a 5xx Server Error message, while the Facebook site merely tells us that something went wrong. The problem also appears to be affecting its virtual reality arm, Oculus. Users can load games they already have installed and the browser works, but social features or installing new games does not. The outage is thorough enough that it’s affecting Workplace from Facebook customers and, according to Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook’s internal sites.

There’s no word yet from Facebook about what may be causing the problem or when those sites, including Messenger and WhatsApp, will be operational again, but we will update this article with more information when it’s available.

The Big Tech behemoth has been facing increased criticism recently, with the Wall Street Journal publishing a series of investigations into the company’s exposing the suppression of internal research which found that its sites like Instagram were causing considerable harm to teenagers.

Latest Update

11:33pm GMT - 04/10/21

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are back

As yet there has been no official reason given for the problem. But online network experts speculated it may involve an error with DNS, or the domain name system, for Facebook sites.

DNS is often compared to an address book or phone book for the internet, pointing web browsers to the computer system which serves the website they are looking for.

Previous issues with DNS led to widespread outages of several major sites earlier this year.

In one of those instances, it emerged that the blackout was caused by a single customer of a widely-used service who changed their settings, triggering a software bug affecting a huge number of websites.

Several other tech companies, including Reddit and Twitter, poked fun at the social media giant's predicament - prompting responses from the affected apps.

And what started trending right after Facebook was back ...

Forbes: Investor confidence in Facebook weakened a bit on Monday amid continued political pressure and a rare lengthy outage of the company’s apps, sending shares down 4.8% and zapping away billions from CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune.

Zuckerberg’s fortune declined by $5.9 billion to a mere $117 billion in total. (He’s now the world’s sixth-richest person.) Top lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg saw her wealth fall to $1.9 billion.

Related Articles:

Facebook says sorry for mass outage and reveals why it happened

Zuckerberg loses $5.9 Billion in a day as Facebook faces rare outage, Whisteblower testimony

Facebook Whistleblower France Haugen's accusations against the social network.

Mili Ponce

Former Computer Engineer, Tech, EdTech and eCommerce Entrepreneur, Keynote Speaker on Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Social Media Strategist, eCommerce Business Mentor, Trainer, Writer, Blogger, Mother, Daughter, Dreamer.

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