Facebook goes down for six hours

On Monday 5 October, billions of users were unable to communicate via Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. The social media giant went down for six hours just before 5.00pm UTC.

Consequently, Facebook released a statement on Tuesday confirming that a faulty configuration change affected the company’s internal tools. The fault brought all services to a halt.

More than 3.5 billion people use the social media services – almost half the population of the globe.

The company released a formal apology on its social media competitor’s website:

To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.

— Meta (@Meta) October 4, 2021

It took staff six hours to fix the error because they couldn’t enter the building. The security pass system that allows people to enter the building was not working as a result of the Facebook error.

Meanwhile, Fortune magazine reported that investors lost confidence in Facebook as the error remained unfixed. Share prices fell 4.8%, reducing Zuckerberg’s personal fortune to $117 billion. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg saw her wealth drop to $1.9 billion.

The social media site went down for fourteen hours in 2019. In 2008, the entire service did not work for a whole day.

It was not a good start to a busy week. Whistleblower and former employee, Frances Haugen, will attend a Congressional hearing on Tuesday in a hearing entitled “Protecting Kids Online”. She will tell the committee about the company’s research into Instagram’s effect on young people’s mental health.