Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp slowly come back online
Anthony Vasquez-Peddie CTVNews.ca writer
Published Monday, October 4, 2021 12:16PM EDT Last Updated Monday, October 4, 2021 6:56PM EDT |
In this March 13, 2019, file photo Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps are are displayed on an iPhone in New York. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
ORONTO -- Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp appear to slowly be coming back online Monday night after experiencing global outages throughout the day.
Service resumed for some users at around 6 p.m. EDT. The outages left people around the world unable to communicate on the platforms for more than six hours According to the website DownDetector, users began reporting outage issues at around 11:20 a.m. EDT. Many users got an “IP address could not be found” message when trying to load Facebook, while Instagram and WhatsApp users couldn't refresh their feeds or send any new messages on those apps. Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Facebook. "We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products," Facebook said on Twitter. "We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience." |
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Facebook did not say what caused the outage.
"We have seen things like this happen before. But they've been very localized, they've been in particular regions or within particular platforms," cybersecurity expert Ritesh Kotak told CTV News Channel during the outages on Monday. "I can't remember a time where there was a global outage of all three platforms where everything just completely shut down." Kotak said the problem seems to be that Facebook's Domain Name System (DNS) records were changed. The internet's DNS is what translates a web address such as "Facebook.com" and directs users to the correct IP address. If the company's DNS records have changed, apps and web addresses wouldn't be able to locate the platforms. "What seems to have happened is the records have been either deleted or they've been changed," Kotak said. The problem was likely a result of human error and not foul play, he said. Facebook is also going through a separate crisis. |
Whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, provided The Wall Street Journal with internal documents that she says exposes Facebook's awareness of harms caused by its products and decisions. Haugen went public on “60 Minutes” on Sunday and is scheduled to testify before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.
Haugen also revealed herself to be the anonymous person who filed complaints with federal law enforcement alleging that Facebook's own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation, leads to increased polarization and that Instagram, specifically, can harm teenage girls' mental health. With files from CTVNews.ca Producer Sonja Puzic and The Associated Press |
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