When apps used by billions of people worldwide blinked out(went down) , lives were disrupte, businesses were cut off from customers
— and some Facebook employees were locke out of their offices.
An update to Facebook’s routers that coordinate network traffic went wrong, sending a wave of disruptions rippling through its systems.
As a result, all things Facebook effectively shut down, worldwide.
Gone in Minutes, Went down Hours: Outage Shakes Facebook
The problem made worse — and its solution more elusive — because the outage also whacked Facebook’s own internal systems and tools that it relies on for daily operations.
Employees also reportedly face difficulty in physically reaching the space where the routers are house.
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.— Facebook (@Facebook)
“From a technical perspective, they’re going to have to review what they do and how they’ve designed things,”
cybersecurity expert Barrett Lyon said in an interview with NPR.
The outage cost the company tens of millions of dollars, Marketwatch says, comparing the company’s lost hours with its most recent revenue report.
The disruption stands as one of Facebook’s worst setbacks since a 2019 incident that took the platform offline for nearly 24 hours — an outage that, like Monday’s, was attribute to a change in Facebook’s server configuration.
Even so, the impact was far-reaching and severe. Facebook has built itself into a linchpin platform with messaging, livestreaming, virtual reality and many other digital services.
In some countries, like Myanmar and India, Facebook is synonymous with the internet. More than 3.5 billion people around the world use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family, distribute political messaging, and expand their businesses through advertising and outreach.
Facebook is also use to sign in to many other apps and services, leading to unexpecte domino effects,
such as people not being able to log into shopping websites or sign into their smart TVs,
thermostats and other internet-connected devices.