FACEBOOK Inc blamed a "faulty configuration change" for a nearly six-hour outage on Monday that prevented the company's 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
The company in a late Monday blog post did not specify who executed the configuration change and whether it was planned.
Several Facebook employees who declined to be named had told Reuters earlier that they believed that the outage was caused by an internal mistake in how internet traffic is routed to its systems.
The failures of internal communication tools and other resources that depend on that same network in order to work compounded the error, the employees said. Security experts have said an inadvertent mistake or sabotage by an insider were both plausible.
"We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change," Facebook said in the blog.
The Facebook outage is the largest ever tracked by web monitoring group Downdetector.
The outage was the second blow to the social media giant in as many days after a whistleblower on Sunday https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-whistleblower-reveals-identity-ahead-senate-hearing-2021-10-03 accused the company of repeatedly prioritizing profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation.
As the world flocked to competing apps such as Twitter and TikTok, shares of Facebook fell 4.9%, their biggest daily drop since last November, amid a broader selloff in technology stocks on Monday. Shares rose about half a percent in after-hours trade following resumption of service.
"To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I'm sorry," Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer tweeted, adding that it "may take some time to get to 100%."
"Facebook basically locked its keys in its car," tweeted Jonathan Zittrain, director of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
Twitter on Monday reported higher-than-normal usage, which led to some issues in people accessing posts and direct messages.
In one of the day's most popular tweets, video streaming company Netflix shared a meme from its new hit show "Squid Game" captioned "When Instagram & Facebook are down," that showed a person labeled "Twitter" holding up a character on the verge of falling labeled "everyone."
Inside a Facebook group for ad buyers, one member wisecracked after service returned that "lots of people searched today 'how to run google ads for clients.'"
Facebook, which is the world's largest seller of online ads after Google, was losing about $545,000 in U.S. ad revenue per hour during the outage, according to estimates from ad measurement firm Standard Media Index.
Past downtime at internet companies has had little long-term affect on their revenue growth, however.
Facebook's services, including consumer apps such as Instagram, workplace tools it sells to businesses and internal programs, went dark noon Eastern time (1600 GMT). Access started to return around 5:45 pm ET.
Soon after the outage started, Facebook acknowledged users were having trouble accessing its apps but did not provide any specifics about the nature of the problem or say how many users were affected.
The error message on Facebook's webpage suggested an error in the Domain Name System (DNS), which allows web addresses to take users to their destinations. A similar outage at cloud company Akamai Technologies Inc took down multiple websites in July.
On Sunday, Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, revealed that she was the whistleblower who provided documents underpinning a recent Wall Street Journal investigation and a U.S. Senate hearing last week on Instagram's harm to teen girls.
Haugen was due to urge the same Senate subcommittee on Tuesday to regulate the company, which she plans to liken to tobacco companies that for decades denied that smoking damaged health, according to prepared testimony seen by Reuters.
Reuters
Tue Oct 05 2021
Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram logos are displayed through broken glass in this illustration taken October 4, 2021. - REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Banjir ragut 76 nyawa di seluruh Kenya
Daerah Nairobi terjejas teruk akibat banjir dengan hampir 17,000 isi rumah dipindahkan.
Nahas skuter elektrik meningkat di Jepun selepas peraturan dilonggar
Dalam tempoh enam bulan sejak Julai lepas, 85 nahas lalu lintas melibatkan skuter elektrik dicatatkan dan mengakibatkan 86 kecederaan.
Mohamed Khaled tiba di Indonesia untuk lawatan rasmi, dijadual bertemu Prabowo
Menteri Pertahanan tiba di Jakarta pada Ahad untuk lawatan kerja rasmi sulung beliau ke Indonesia sejak memegang jawatan itu.
'Tersentuh tengok golongan OKU penglihatan tunai umrah’ - Mohd Na’im
"Moga terkabul segala hajat sahabat-sahabat OKU penglihatan menunaikan ibadat umrah dan ziarah."
PM Anwar yakin terhadap IsDB dalam tangani ketidaksamaan, marginalisasi umat Islam
Bank itu mempunyai peranan untuk menangani isu ketidakadilan, ketidaksamaan dan marginalisasi terutamanya dalam kalangan umat Islam.
Harumanis antara tarikan utama Agrofiesta 2024
Mangga harumanis dan produk makanan berasaskan mangga antara tarikan utama pada penganjuran Agrofiesta 2024.
NIOSH sedia beri khidmat nasihat depani cabaran perubahan iklim
NIOSH bersedia memberikan khidmat nasihat serta rundingan bagi membantu kerajaan, majikan dan pekerja menghadapi cabaran berkaitan perubahan iklim.
Malaysia negara pertama terima visa haji
Malaysia menjadi negara pertama yang menerima pengeluaran visa haji daripada Kementerian Haji dan Umrah Arab Saudi bagi jemaah musim haji 1445H/2024.
Menteri Indonesia bincang isu pekerja migran dengan rakan sejawat dari Malaysia
Fauziyah harap Steven akan membawa penambahbaikan kepada dasar berkaitan tenaga kerja Indonesia.
Pahang peruntuk RM1.5 juta bantuan tunai bakal jemaah haji
Sebanyak 1,588 jemaah haji Pahang menerima sumbangan 'duit poket' berjumlah RM750 seorang bagi membantu meringankan beban bakal haji dalam melakukan persiapan melaksanakan rukun Islam kelima itu.
WTCKL diiktiraf International Business Review ASEAN Awards
Irmohizam menzahirkan ucapan jutaan terima kasih kepada The International Business Review atas pengiktirafan berkenaan.
COVID-19: Pelanggan tembak tiga pekerja restoran makanan segera selepas dilarang makan dalam restoran
Suspek diberitahu oleh pekerja restoran itu bahawa ruang makan ditutup dan hanya 'drive-thru' sahaja dibuka.
Bertahun bina empayar, Asyraf Khalid kongsi di sebalik jatuh bangun dunia niaga
Menurut pengusaha jamu Mutyara Beauty itu, dia sentiasa dilontarkan dengan tanggapan negatif sesetengah pihak kononnya hanya bernasib baik kerana pengaruh bapanya.
COVID-19: RM4.5 billion fund to help small, medium enterprises and micro entrepreneurs
Prime Minister said the allocation would be channelled through five key initiatives.
Maxis Business SPARK Summit tampil pemikiran bersama dalam memacu transformasi digital di Malaysia
Lebih dari 500 pemimpin perniagaan tempatan dan antarabangsa dari sektor Korporat, Kerajaan dan PKS tempatan menyertai Maxis Business SPARK Summit 2019 pertama.
Kaji selidik Monash: Pemimpin korporat Cina puas hati dengan PH
Dalam kaji selidik yang melibatkan 390 responden itu, 50 peratus pemimpin korporat Cina berpuas hati, diikuti pemimpin Melayu (39 peratus), dan pemimpin India (38 peratus).
Syarikat tembakau terbesar dunia seru perokok berhenti merokok
Kaji selidik terbaharu oleh Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) adalah sebahagian daripada kempen 'Unsmoke' yang menyeru agar semua berhenti merokok.
Kerjasama SME Bank, TM dan Commerce.Asia bantu usahawan dalam transformasi digital
SME Bank bersama Telekom Malaysia Berhad dan Commerce.Asia menandatangani dua Memorandum Persefahaman (MoU) pada Selasa.
Pengasas produk The Ordinary ditemui mati
Sehari sebelum kematiannya, Brandon Truaxe telah memuat naik beberapa video berkelakuan pelik ke Instagram.
Here are the three considerations we had when we did the Budget - Tony Pua
Damansara MP Tony Pua explained the three major considerations on what went into the development and execution of Budget 2019.