The three social media platforms owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp have been dealt with a severe shutdown for a progressive seven hours.
Very alarming as it comes a day after 37-year- old Frances Haugen, a data scientist and also a whistleblower leaked on US television several documents proving that Facebook is aware that their products fuel hate and harm children’s mental health.
In the past, Haugen has worked also worked for Google and Pinterest but said without a flinch in an interview with CBS news show “60 Minutes” that Facebook was “substantially worse” than anything she had seen before.
Reports by Tracker Downdetector showed problems being reported from around 1545 GMT in some parts of Europe and North America, which are currently dealing with a complete shutdown. Over 50,000 users are said to have reported Facebook and Instagram since the shutdown.
WhatsApp has also been down for over 35,000 users, while Messenger records nearly 9,800 users.
Facebook has however left an appealing message to users trying to access the platform. It reads: “Something went wrong. We’re working on it and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we can.”
Facebook also tweeted a similar message saying “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
According to Reuters, a Facebook employee said that all internal tools were down and employees lost access to some of their tools in the shutdown. Contrary to this, multiple Facebook employees said they have not been briefed by the company on what actually went wrong.
The Implications
Facebook the parent company of Instagram and WhatsApp is the second-largest digital advertising platform in the world (Google is first). The company according to estimates from ad measurement firm, Standard Media Index, is losing $545,000 in U.S. ad revenue per hour during this shutdown.
This includes the total number of ads from January to August 2021 on both Facebook and Instagram ad spending from big advertising agencies.
The shutdown even extends to other third-party apps like Pokemon Go and Match Masters, specifically for users using their Facebook credentials to log in.
“If your game isn’t running as usual please note that there’s been an issue with Facebook login servers and the moment this gets fixed all will be back to normal,” puzzle game app Match Masters said on its Twitter account.
So far, no precise time on when it will be rectified has been announced likewise the exact cause of the shutdown apart from speculations.
Users of these platforms have equally taken to Twitter to vent their frustration pending when the trio are back up.
