UPDATED, Monday 6:30 p.m.: Less than a day after a report aired on “60 Minutes” from a whistleblower detailed company practices that prioritized profits over safety, both Facebook and Instagram went down for six hours.
Users began running into issues accessing both of the social media giant’s websites just before noon on Monday. The company’s What’s App and other Facebook-related products also experienced issues.
There is no word yet on what caused Facebook’s servers to go offline, kicking all of its platforms off the Internet with error messages or frozen screens popping up.
In a statement, Facebook said “to everyone affected by the outages on our platforms today, we’re sorry. We appreciate your patience as we come back online.”
The problem appeared to be more widespread than just a simple server outage.
Confirmed: The DNS records that tell systems how to find https://t.co/qHzVq2Mr4E or https://t.co/JoIPxXI9GI got withdrawn this morning from the global routing tables. Can you imagine working at FB right now, when your email no longer works & all your internal FB-based tools fail?
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) October 4, 2021
JUST IN – Facebook employees reportedly can't enter buildings to evaluate the Internet outage because their door access badges weren’t working (New York Times)
— Dave Bondy (@DaveBondyTV) October 4, 2021
Francis Haugen, a former data scientist at Facebook, kept her identity a secret when she filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission against Facebook and shared internal Facebook documents with The Wall Street Journal.
Last night, Haugen was revealed as the whistleblower during a report on “60 Minutes” and Haugen said she’ll testify to congress that Facebook has deceived regulators and the public about its monitoring of hate speech and misinformation.
She said on “60 Minutes” that Facebook “is choosing profit over safety.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen says political parties have been quoted in Facebook’s own research saying they know Facebook changed its algorithm and “now if [they] don't publish angry, hateful, polarizing… content,” there’s less engagement. https://t.co/XKKBhxZZ36 pic.twitter.com/tvSmVIJfWT
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 4, 2021
Haugen is a native of Iowa City, Radio Iowa reported Monday, and her website says her parents are professors. Haugen has an electrical and computer engineering degree from Olin College and a Harvard MBA. She worked at Google and Yelp before she was hired at Facebook in 2019. She resigned from Facebook in May of this year.
A spokesman for Facebook told CNN the social media platform reflects the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity and Facebook is trying to mitigate the bad and amplify the good.
Users have since taken to Twitter since the other platforms went down:
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
Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we’re on it! #instagramdown
— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) October 4, 2021
Every now and then I fall apart. #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/jzsWCQXkoZ
— Bonnie Tyler (@BonnieTOfficial) October 4, 2021
Everyone showing up to @Twitter today while @Facebook @instagram @WhatsApp are down like… pic.twitter.com/SGtr722FAo
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) October 4, 2021
Well, we don't think the weather is to blame for the Facebook and Instagram outages…
The forecast looks right as rain at HQ! pic.twitter.com/7TlcCsMBmW
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) October 4, 2021
Well with Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp being down, we would like to congratulate @Twitter for surviving the Social Media Hunger Games.
— HostGator (@HostGator) October 4, 2021
Welcome to all the people checking twitter to see what's up with Facebook being down, we hope you stay
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) October 4, 2021
Instagram and Facebook users trying to navigate Twitter pic.twitter.com/AETk0xpGA4
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) October 4, 2021
Not only are Facebook's services and apps down for the public, its internal tools and communications platforms, including Workplace, are out as well. No one can do any work. Several people I've talked to said this is the equivalent of a "snow day" at the company.
— Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) October 4, 2021
Me enjoying all the memes on twitter after instagram and Facebook is down pic.twitter.com/5dlJ2RQO10
— 🦕 (@Katy_castillaa) October 4, 2021