Facebook blames "faulty configuration change" for global outage
Facebook blamed the "faulty configuration change" for a nearly six-hour blockade that prevented 3.5 billion of their users from accessing social networks and messaging services such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.
The company did not state on the blog who made the configuration change and whether it was planned. Several Facebook employees, who wished to remain anonymous, told Reuters earlier that they believed that the interruption was due to an internal error in the way Internet traffic is directed.
Malfunctions of internet communication tools and other resources that depend on the same network have exacerbated the problem, employees said. Security experts did not rule out the possibility of an unintentional mistake but also sabotage.
"To all the people and businesses around the world who depend on us, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by today’s outage across our platforms," started the announcement, "We have no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime," Facebook wrote on the blog.
Facebook's drop out of the global network was the second blow to the social media giant a few days after the whistleblower accused the company on Sunday of frequently giving preference to profit instead of suppressing hate speech and misinformation.
Shares of Facebook lost value even after the whistleblower's report and then continued to fall. As the world swarmed with competing apps like Twitter and TikTok, Facebook shares fell 4.9 percent, their biggest daily drop since November last year, Reuters reports.
"I feel sorry for every small and large company, family, and individual who depends on us," wrote Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer on Facebook, adding that "it may take some time for them to reach 100 percent."
Twitter reported more use than usual on Monday, leading to some problems accessing posts and direct messages.
Facebook, which is the largest seller of online ads in the world after Google, lost about $ 545,000 in ad revenue per hour in the United States, according to estimates by the Standard Media Index.
In the late afternoon hours, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp started connecting to the Internet, almost six hours after the global outage.
Shortly after going down, Facebook admitted that users had problems accessing its applications, but did not give any details about the nature of the problem nor did it say how many users were affected.
By: Helen B.
