Social Media platform apps icons being displayed on a screen. Referential photo.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp registered a worldwide drop on Monday, October 4, according to data from the DownDetector portal. A graph clearly showed the moment when the problem occurred and the number of reports received on each website. However, it was also evident on the remaining operational social media platforms such as Twitter, Telegram, TikTok, Snapchat, and others, where users from all over the world expressed their frustration for the collapse of the giant media corporation’s tools.
Regarding WhatsApp and Instagram, users complained about not being able to open the applications, as well as struggling to connect with the server and sending messages. Meanwhile, a large number of Facebook users were unable to access the website of the social media platform, as well as its Messenger chat service. At the moment the cause of the failures is unknown.
Those responsible for WhatsApp application were the first to admit the problem through their official Twitter account, about 30 minutes after users from all over the world reported the incident:
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“We are aware that some people are experiencing problems with WhatsApp right now,” read the statement. “We are working to get everything back to normal and we will update the information here as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience!”
Tens of thousands of internet users in the United States, Mexico, Spain, France, Romania, Norway, Georgia, Greece, Argentina, Venezuela, India, Canada and other countries went to Twitter and Telegram to report that they could not access the services, and were looking for alternatives.
The day before, on Sunday, Amazon’s Alexa device platform also reported a surge in service issues. Coincidentally, that same day, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen went public on prime time TV show 60 Minutes and revealed that she is the whistleblower that has been leaking information to the Wall Street Journal and the US Congress in recent weeks questioning Zuckerberg’s conglomerate practices.
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“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” Haugen said in the interview. “And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money.”
She mainly criticized Facebook’s willingness to lower polarizing content and combat disinformation, because doing so would not provide the corporation with the earnings it needed. Until April of this year Haugen was part of the Civic Integrity team that allegedly was disbanded due to a “broader corporation reshuffle.”
“It was the moment where I was like, ‘I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous,’” Haugen told 60 Minutes in the interview broadcast on Sunday night.
Zuckerberg’s services went dark at approximately 12:00 p.m. EST and came back progressively beginning around 5:45 p.m. EST, starting with Facebook, then Instagram, and finally WhatsApp.
Featured image: Social media platform icons displayed on a screen. File photo.
(Alba Ciudad) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
