San Francisco – The family of apps, including Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, were out of reach for Monday hours, showing how much the world relied on a multi-billion-dollar network.
Users report that Facebook apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus, have started displaying error messages around 11:40 p.m. Within minutes, Facebook disappeared from the Internet. Although the company warned that the services would take some time to stabilize, some apps were temporarily shut down for more than five hours before they were brought back to life.
Still, the effects were far-reaching and far-reaching. Facebook has built itself on the LinkedIn platform for messaging, live streaming, virtual reality and many other digital services. In some countries, such as Myanmar and India, Facebook is similar to the Internet. More than 3.5 billion people around the world use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp to connect with friends and family, spread political messages, and promote their businesses through advertising and dissemination.
Facebook is used to access many other apps and services, which can lead to unintended consequences for people accessing shopping websites or accessing their smart TVs, thermostats and other Internet-connected devices.
The breakdown of technology is not uncommon, but it was not uncommon for many applications to be in the same darkness as the world’s largest social media company. Facebook’s last major breakup was in 2019, when a technical error affected the sites for 24 hours, a snafu could disrupt even the most powerful internet companies.
The reason for the termination was not immediately clear. Two members of the Facebook security team, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not appear to have been affected by the cyber attack. Security experts say the problem may be due to Facebook’s failure to allow people to connect to sites such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone Posted on Twitter: “We know that some people have difficulty accessing our apps and products. We are working to get things back to normal as soon as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience. ”
The cut-off also added to the growing problem on Facebook. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who has been searching the company for thousands of pages for weeks, was shot in a whisper. Since then, she has distributed the cache to news outlets, lawmakers and regulators;
The revelations sparked outrage among regulators, lawmakers, and the public. Haugen, who revealed her identity online and on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, is scheduled to testify in Congress on Tuesday about the impact on young users.
“Today’s disconnection has brought a great deal of confidence in Facebook and its assets, such as WhatsApp and Instagram,” said Bandar Erin Duffy, a professor of communications at Cornell University. Today’s breakup is a shocking step forward in building our rapidly growing digital middle economy.
When it was cut off on Monday morning, Facebook and Instagram users were quick to use Twitter to mourn the loss of their applications. The hashtag #Facebook is also appearing. Memories of the event abound.
But real money has just arrived because many people around the world rely on apps to guide their daily lives.
“Facebook is falling apart and we are losing thousands of sales,” said Mark Donnelly, founder of Ireland, a fashion brand that specializes in using Facebook and Instagram to reach customers. It may not seem like much to others, but a four- or five-hour sale may be the difference between the electricity bill or the monthly rent.
Samir Munir, a catering operator in Delhi, says he has not been able to reach customers or place orders because he runs the business on Facebook and takes orders through WhatsApp.
“Everything has failed, all my business has failed,” he said.
Douglas Venei, a Cleveland player who runs GoodGameBro and pays for spectators and subscribers to the Facebook game, added: “For many people, your main revenue stream is down.” He described the situation as “scary.”
Employees on Facebook were also shaken by the suspension of their internal systems. According to an internal memo sent to employees and shared with the New York Times, the company’s international security team “has been alerted to a system breach that affects all Facebook internal systems and devices.” Those devices include security systems, internal calendar and scheduling devices, the memo said.
Employees said they had trouble making calls from work phones and receiving emails from people outside the company. The Facebook internship forum was also taken over, and many were unable to do their jobs. Some have switched to other platforms to connect, including LinkedIn and Zoom as well as Discord chat rooms.
Some Facebook employees who returned to work in the office also stopped working with their digital badges and could not enter buildings and meeting rooms. The inability of security engineers to reach the service areas has hampered their assessment of the disruption.
The termination of Facebook’s Global Security Operations Center was “a serious threat to the public, a minor threat to property and a serious threat to Facebook’s reputation.” Company Note.
A small group of employees was sent to the Santa Clara, California Information Center on Facebook to try “manually restarting the company’s servers.”
Many Facebook users have described the cut-off as “snowy day”, a sentiment echoed by Instagram’s Adam Moseri.
In the early days of Facebook, the site experienced occasional interruptions as millions of new users flooded the network. Over the years, he has spent billions of dollars building infrastructure and services in major cities, including Previnville, Ore, and Fort Worth, Texas.
For years, the company has been trying to integrate basic technical infrastructure into Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
Cloudflare chief technology officer John Graham-Kumming, a web infrastructure company, said in an interview Monday that Monday’s problem may be due to a misalignment of Facebook servers.
Computers convert websites such as facebook.com to digital Internet Protocol addresses, in a system similar to a phonebook. He said the Facebook issue was the same as removing people’s phone numbers from their names in their address book, making it impossible to call them. Because Cloudflare redirects traffic to Facebook, he knew in advance that it had been discontinued and saw the scale of the event.
“Facebook seemed to say, ‘Goodbye, we’re leaving now,'” Mr Graham-Kumimim said.
Ryan Mac, Nicole Perlot And Kellen Browning Contributed.