Social media giants–Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are back online after a widespread outage on Monday, October 4, 2021.
The social media apps were offline for about six hours. They used Twitter to update their subscribers on the development.
A lot of people took to Twitter to make jokes about the situation, as the impact of the outage was felt by individuals and businesses who rely on such platforms to connect with their audience and business associates.
“To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us,” Facebook announced.
To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.
— Facebook (@Facebook) October 4, 2021
WhatsApp also apologised for the glitch.
“Apologies to everyone who hasn’t been able to use WhatsApp today. We’re starting to slowly and carefully get WhatsApp working again. Thank you so much for your patience. We will continue to keep you updated when we have more information to share.”
Apologies to everyone who hasn’t been able to use WhatsApp today. We’re starting to slowly and carefully get WhatsApp working again.
Thank you so much for your patience. We will continue to keep you updated when we have more information to share.
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) October 4, 2021
Instagram also posted a brief update saying: “Instagram is slowly but surely coming back now – thanks for dealing with us and sorry for the wait!”
According to Bloomberg, owner of the social media giants, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth dipped by $7 billion in a matter of hours due to the outage and scrutiny of his firm following claims by a whistle-blower.
But prior to Monday’s outage, Facebook had been in the news because its former product manager Frances Haugen had leaked documents, which suggest Facebook had been negligent in eliminating violence and misinformation from its platforms.
She claimed Facebook knew about a range of issues with its platforms, including how Instagram affects teenage girls and the rise of white nationalist content on Facebook.
