The platforms disruption not only affected millions of users worldwide but also sparked a wave of speculation and commentary, including Elon Musk’s Jibe aimed at Meta, formerly known as Facebook.
The cause of the outages on the platforms, all owned by Facebook, was not immediately clear. However, the error messages suggested there was a problem with Domain Name System (DNS),
which allows web addresses to take users to their destinations.
According to Netblocks, Facebook — which runs the free sites — was losing $160 million every hour they are down. The company’s shares were also down 5%
Elon Musk, the owner of X, took a jibe at Meta Platforms – Facebook, Instagram and Threads after they experienced outages stating “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.”
He also shared a tweet by Meta spokesperson saying, “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.”
Issues were also reported on Meta’s other app Threads – which intends to rival X, formerly known as Twitter, according to DownDetector.
Meta said on its status page earlier: “We are aware of an issue impacting Facebook Login. Our engineering teams are actively looking to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”
WhatsApp, which is also run by the Mark Zuckerberg-founded company, appeared not to have any widespread issues today, however.
Memes flooded microblogging platform X after thousands of users across the globe reported issues while using Instagram and Facebook.
Within minutes of the outage, people moved to Elon Musk-owned X and #Instagramdown, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are trending on the social media platform, with users sharing memes over the global server issue.
“Has Facebook just booted you out? You’re not alone,” one user said on X with a screenshot of the error message.
“I’ve spent the last hour thinking my Facebook & IG were hacked,” another said. “THE RELIEF knowing it’s f***ed up across the board?? Does anyone know what happened?? Cyber attack?”
A third said: “My anxiety thinking that my Facebook & Instagram got hacked but thank God it’s happening the same thing with everyone.”
Another user shared a clip from an episode of Mr Bean and took a jibe over Meta. Mr Bean, as X, is in a hospital sitting next to a patient covered with bandages, representing Meta and crosses his leg to make fun of him.
The recent widespread outage of Facebook and Instagram lasting 6 hours has once again highlighted the vulnerability of our dependence on centralised social media platforms in 2024 and beyond
The outage comes a day after a Facebook whistleblower accused the firm of repeatedly prioritising profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation, and said her lawyers
have filed at least eight complaints with the US Securities and Exchange Commission
