A massive global outage plunged Facebook, its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms and many people who rely heavily on these services 鈥� including Facebook鈥檚 own workforce 鈥� into chaos Monday.
The company did not say what might be causing the outage, which began around 11:40 a.m. ET and was still unfixed more than six hours later, although scattered users have reported partial restoration of one service or another. Websites and apps often suffer outages of varying size and duration, but hours-long global disruptions are rare.
鈥淭his is epic,鈥� said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for Kentik Inc, a network monitoring and intelligence company. The last major internet outage, which knocked many of the world鈥檚 top websites offline in June, lasted less than an hour. The stricken content-delivery company in that case, Fastly, blamed it on a software bug triggered by a customer who changed a setting.
For hours, Facebook鈥檚 only public comment was a tweet in which it acknowledged that 鈥渟ome people are having trouble accessing (the) Facebook app鈥� and that it was working on restoring access. Regarding the internal failures, Instagram head Adam Mosseri tweeted that it feels like a 鈥渟now day.鈥�
Mike Schroepfer, Facebook鈥檚 outgoing chief technology officer, later tweeted 鈥渟incere apologies鈥� to everyone impacted by the outage. He blamed 鈥渘etworking issues鈥� and said teams are 鈥渨orking as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible.鈥�
There was no evidence as of Monday afternoon that malicious activity was involved. Matthew Prince, CEO of the internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare, tweeted that 鈥渘othing we鈥檙e seeing related to the Facebook services outage suggests it was an attack.鈥� Prince said the most likely explanation was that Facebook mistakenly knocked itself off the internet during maintenance.
Facebook did not respond to messages for comment about the attack or the possibility of malicious activity.
While much of Facebook鈥檚 workforce is still working remotely, there were reports that employees at work on the company鈥檚 Menlo Park, California, campus had trouble entering buildings because the outage had rendered their security badges useless.
But the impact was far worse for multitudes of Facebook鈥檚 nearly 3 billion users, showing just how much the world has come to rely on it and its properties 鈥� to run businesses, connect with online communities, log on to multiple other websites and even order food.
It also showed that despite the presence of Twitter, Telegram, Signal, TikTok, Snapchat and a bevy of other platforms, nothing can easily replace the social network that over the past 17 years has effectively evolved into critical infrastructure. The outage came the same day Facebook asked a federal judge that that a revised antitrust complaint against it by the Federal Trade Commission be dismissed because it faces vigorous competition from other services.
There are certainly online services for posting selfies, connecting with fans or reaching out to elected officials, But those who rely on Facebook to run their business or communicate with friends and family in far-flung places saw this as little consolation.
Kendall Ross, owner of a knitwear brand called Knit That in Oklahoma City, said he has 32,000 followers on his Instagram business page @id.knit.that. Almost all of his website traffic comes directly from Instagram. He posted a product photo about an hour before Instagram went out. He said he tends to sell about two hand-knit pieces after posting a product photo for about $300 to $400.
鈥淭he outage today is frustrating financially,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 also a huge awakening that social media controls so much of my success in business.鈥�
The cause of the outage remains unclear. Madory said it appears Facebook appears to have deleted basic data that tells the rest of the internet how to communicate with its properties. Such data is part of the internet鈥檚 Domain Name System, a central component that directs its traffic. Without Facebook broadcasting its location on the public internet, apps and web addresses simple could not locate it.
So many people are reliant on Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram as primary modes of communication that losing access for so long can make them vulnerable to criminals taking advantage of the outage, said Rachel Tobac, a hacker and CEO of SocialProof Security.
鈥淭hey don鈥檛 know how to contact the people in their lives without it,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e more susceptible to social engineering because they鈥檙e so desperate to communicate.鈥� Tobac said during previous outages, some people have received emails promising to restore their social media account by clicking on a malicious link that can expose their personal data.
Jake Williams, chief technical officer of the cybersecurity firm BreachQuest, said that while foul play cannot be completely ruled out, chances were good that the outage is 鈥渁n operational issue鈥� caused by human error.
鈥淲hat it boils down to: running a LARGE, even by Internet standards, distributed system is very hard, even for the very best,鈥� tweeted Columbia University computer scientist Steven Bellovin.
Facebook was already in the throes of a separate major crisis after whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, provided The Wall Street Journal with internal documents that exposed the company鈥檚 awareness of harms caused by its products and decisions. Haugen went public on CBS鈥檚 鈥�60 Minutes鈥� program Sunday and is scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.
Haugen had also anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement alleging Facebook鈥檚 own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation and leads to increased polarization. It also showed that the company was aware that Instagram can harm teenage girls鈥� mental health.
The Journal鈥檚 stories, called 鈥淭he Facebook Files,鈥� painted a picture of a company focused on growth and its own interests over the public good. Facebook has tried to play down the research. Nick Clegg, the company鈥檚 vice president of policy and public affairs, wrote to Facebook employees in a memo Friday that 鈥渟ocial media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out.鈥�
Twitter, meanwhile, chimed in from the company鈥檚 main Twitter account, posting 鈥渉ello literally everyone鈥� as jokes and memes about the Facebook outage flooded the platform. Later, as an unverified screenshot suggesting that the facebook.com address was for sale circulated, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, 鈥渉ow much?鈥�
鈥擳he Associated Press
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