Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp experiences global outage.

Social media users across the world, including the United States, the UK, Brazil, Kuwait, and more are experiencing outages on Facebook, including all social networks the company owns, which include Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. According to DownDetector, the issues started at around 4:44pm (W.A.T) and by 5:24pm over 50,000 people had reported issues on alternative media platforms including Twitter. The trillion-dollar company, which boasts 2.9 billion monthly active users, has remained down for at least an hour and counting. At the same time, Facebook stock has gone down about 5.5%. This follows a recent downward trend for the stock as Facebook faces scrutiny in the U.S. Senate after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents to the Wall Street Journal.

When navigating to these websites, a server error will appear, for instance, Instagram displays a “5xx server error,” indicating that there is a problem with Facebook’s servers. On these platforms’ mobile apps, users are also unable to send or receive messages. Oculus, Facebook’s virtual reality gaming platform, isn’t left out, with one customer characterizing their device as “like a paperweight.” ‘We’re aware that some people are having problems accessing our apps and products,’ Oculus has recently tweeted. We’re attempting to restore normalcy as soon as possible, and we apologize for any trouble this has caused.’

The official WhatsApp Twitter account indicated in a tweet that the firm was “not prepared for this” vibe well. We’re aware that some people are having problems using WhatsApp right now. We’re attempting to restore normalcy and will provide an update as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience!

“We’re aware that some individuals are having problems using our apps and products,” Facebook policy communications director Andy Stone said. We’re working hard to restore normalcy as soon as possible, and we apologize for any trouble this has caused.

Instagram swiftly responded with a statement, saying, “Instagram and friends are having some troubles right now, and you may be having trouble using them.” Bear with us we’re on it, ending the statement with #instagramdown.

Facebook’s internal Workplace site and associated services for employees are also down today, according to tech blogger Jane Manchun Wong. Employees have received a memo regarding the problems.

The outages quickly became a trend on Twitter, as users flocked to the competing social network to see if other users had been affected by the outage. As the company continues to face backlash over the effects its platforms have on younger users, the hashtag “#DeleteFacebook” is trending on Twitter.

According to the New York Times, Facebook has already been subjected to numerous investigations. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who amassed thousands of pages of internal research and has since distributed them to the news media, lawmakers, and regulators, has slammed the company. The documents revealed that Facebook was aware of numerous harms caused by its services.

According to Jake Moore, a cybersecurity specialist at ESET, outages are becoming more common and more difficult to predict. Initially, a major problem with a website or app can point to a cyber-attack, but this can add to the confusion and be misleading, according to him.

‘With recent issues such as what happened with Fastly (the web service platform that saw a major global outage on June 8) it highlights the power of an undiscovered software bug or even human error,’ Moore explained. ‘Although these are increasing in frequency and require more fail-safes in place, predicting these issues is increasingly more difficult as it was never thought possible before. Luckily, most outages only last under an hour.’

According to Matthew Hodgson, Co-founder and CEO of Element and Technical Co-founder of Matrix, the new outage underlines the main concerns with employing centralised systems. “The ongoing outages of WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook (including Facebook Messenger and Facebook Workplace) demonstrate that worldwide disruptions are one of the fundamental drawbacks of a centralized system,” he stated. Having a single back end for Facebook products, for example, involves putting “all the eggs in one basket,” as Hodgson described. ‘Decentralized systems are far more dependable. Because there is no single point of failure, they can tolerate major disruption while still keeping people and businesses connected.’

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