On Monday 4th October 2021, Facebook Inc.’s services were unavailable for up to six hours, interrupting access for users and businesses worldwide and leaving the tech giant scurrying to find a solution. The whole world had to experience the social media outage.
Unlike Facebook and Instagram, which are mostly used for social media, WhatsApp is an important communication tool for individuals all over the world. On the service, there are about two billion active users.
Why Facebook outage was a huge panic situation for people around the globe?
According to its quarterly financial reporting from July, the social network business has 1.19 billion daily active users. It concludes the need for social media and hence explains the panic and various conspiracy theories around the world.
The Facebook and Instagram outage lasted for hours until a number of apps were gradually restored. However, the company warned that the process could take some time.
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.
— Meta (@Meta) October 4, 2021
The consequences, in any event, were far-reaching and terrible. Facebook has established itself as a critical platform with messaging, live-streaming, virtual reality, and a myriad of other digital services. In several countries, including Myanmar and India, Facebook is linked to the internet. Over 3.5 billion people use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family. They exchange political views, and promote their businesses through advertising and outreach.
People on the other platforms kept putting status like is Facebook down, why Instagram not working and WhatsApp not working, etc. The worldwide Facebook outage had a number of consequences for small and large enterprises that rely on Facebook.
According to Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at network monitoring firm Kentik, the update left Facebook’s DNS servers unavailable, forcing its services—Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram—to go offline.
Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has apologized. “I realize how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about.” he wrote on Facebook.
Many People Rushed to Twitter
A quick look at the Twitter feed suggests that the issues were widespread. While it’s unclear why so many individuals were unable to access the platforms, their DNS records suggest that, like with last week’s Slack outage, the issue appears to be DNS.
Facebook’s border gateway protocol routes – BGP helps networks choose the optimal method to distribute internet data — were suddenly “withdrawn from the internet,” according to Cloudflare senior vice president Dane Knecht. While some have hypothesized that the glitch was caused by hackers or an internal outcry about the whistleblower’s testimony before Congress, Facebook has blamed the Facebook crash on the flaw discovered during standard maintenance.
Instagram.com displayed a 5xx Server Error message, while Facebook.com merely indicated that something went wrong. The breach also impacted Oculus, the company’s virtual reality subsidiary. Users could play games they already had installed in the browser, but there were no social elements or possibilities for installing new games.
A test of ISP DNS servers found that the vast majority of them had successfully detected a route to Facebook.com at approximately 5:30 p.m. ET, after failing all tests for most of Monday.
Users of Facebook and its services filled Twitter on Monday with comments, jokes, and complaints. Twitter’s main account tweeted “hi literally everyone” a few hours after the outage began. Along with other jokes, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey posted his support for Signal, a competitor messaging service. Later, the business recognized that the influx of traffic may have hampered answers and direct messages for a time resulting in a Twitter slow day.
Chaos | Conspiracy Theory | Whistle-blower
Facebook’s whole network of services fell offline just as Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the business over a whistleblower’s charges and its treatment of research findings claiming Instagram is damaging to kids.
The outage just added to Facebook’s problems. For weeks, Frances Haugen has been under fire as a former Facebook product manager who amassed hundreds of pages of internal research. She then shared the cache with the mainstream media, lawmakers, and regulators, implying that Facebook was aware of a number of negative consequences of its services, including the fact that Instagram made adolescent girls feel horrible about themselves.
However, once she revealed her identity, there is still more to the story of how Facebook is impacting its users worldwide.
Following the downtime, Facebook’s stock price has dropped that evening
According to reports, the company’s stock has decreased 5.76 percent since its website was shut down.
Mark Zuckerberg is said to have lost an estimated $7 billion in a matter of hours. Since September, the company’s stock price is anticipated to have dropped 15%.
What if it keeps happening? We know this isn’t the first time.
In March, several Facebook services were temporarily unavailable. While earlier this year, workplace messaging platform Slack Technologies Inc. experienced a service outage that lasted several hours. More than a dozen of Alphabet Inc.’s Google services, including Gmail and YouTube, were affected by outages in December.
The rippling effects of the outages have been seen more as more employees turned to cloud services and other connected platforms amid the Covid-19 outbreak.
Many people even joke that Mark should not buy all three apps if he cannot handle them. They may come out as a joke, but many businesses and especially small businesses relying on these apps for marketing, communication, and reach, are thinking of switching to other apps.
Now, what if social media goes off and never comes back?
This can be a huge problem for the people who manage the business through these apps or have indirectly connected to other apps through it. Facebook is a huge company and can keep itself out of the loss that happened during the outage. Your company may not survive. You can lose your customers, reach, and a way to connect to your employees or clients closely and personally.
Time to connect through the app that gives you a safe way to stay connected. Yes, we are talking about TeamingWay. It is the most secure and safest platform to collaborate with your staff and customers as well.
Since many people have moved to cloud resources, these outages can be overwhelming.
Find your way with TeamingWay
You don’t have to wait for a social media Facebook outage update if you are using TeamingWay. Your business stays updated, and there is no way you will lose access to your data anytime. TeamingWay is a complete app that connects business individuals not only to their employees but to the clients too. Your clients can reach out to you for instant updates. And you can also make channels for multiple projects to keep track of.
So, before you panic about WhatsApp not connecting when Whatsapp servers are down, you need to introduce TeamingWay within your organization in the near future. Its ability to help you organize workflow and features of collaboration can make business meetings painless and without any fear of losing out on access anytime. Problems are a part of life, and we make it through every day. Therefore, this one is also on us how we look for the possible solution instead of wasting time debating about the news. Your business will not wait for you.
Your business needs you, time to make it through your way to success with Teamingway.
