Facebook Inc blamed a global service outage that kept its social media apps offline for much of Monday on a problem with its network configuration, adding that it found no evidence that user data was compromised during the downtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt,\u201d the company\u2019s engineering team wrote in a blog post-Monday night.<\/p>\n
The technical issue took Facebook\u2019s core social network, its photo app Instagram and its WhatsApp and Messenger services offline for hours, marking one of the longest and broadest failures in recent memory.<\/p>\n
It had a seismic impact, immobilizing a suite of services that more than 2.75 billion people rely on daily to communicate, do business and consume news. The outage dominated news reports and sent people across the globe scrambling to other apps and services in an effort to stay connected and informed.<\/p>\n
Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg apologized on his Facebook page after the network had been restored. \u201cSorry for the disruption today – I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Facebook\u2019s internal tools and communications systems were impacted by the disruption, adding to the challenge for engineers working to identify and resolve the issue. Its internal work product, Workplace, was also affected. Fixing the underlying problem involved visiting a physical server facility and manually resetting some servers, a spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer tweeted Monday afternoon. His apology was reiterated by Facebook\u2019s engineering blog.<\/p>\n
Facebook\u2019s loss turned into a gain for other social media. Twitter Inc\u2019s network stayed online, with CEO Jack Dorsey tweeting his endorsement of private messenger Signal as a WhatsApp alternative.<\/p>\n
Signal signed up millions of new users on the day, while Telegram, whose functionality closely mirrors that of WhatsApp, surged 55 places to top the US iPhone download chart, according to Sensor Tower.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s not uncommon for Facebook\u2019s apps to have occasional glitches, they rarely last more than a few minutes. Downdetector, which monitors internet problems, said the Facebook outage was the largest it had seen, with more than 10.6 million reports worldwide.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s protracted outage was the latest in a cascade of difficult events for Facebook. A former employee turned whistle-blower appeared Sunday on CBS\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d to accuse the company of prioritizing profits over user safety.<\/p>\n
The former employee, Frances Haugen, also handed over thousands of damning documents to US lawmakers and the Wall Street Journal, which wrote a series of articles last month on Facebook\u2019s struggles with content moderation and Instagram\u2019s negative psychological impact on teenagers.<\/p>\n
The whistle-blower is set to testify before a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday and plans to tell lawmakers the \u201cfrightening truth\u201d about Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacebook became a $1 trillion company by paying for its profits with our safety, including the safety of our children,\u201d Haugen will tell the Senate Tuesday, according to a copy of her prepared testimony. \u201cI came forward because I recognized a frightening truth: almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook. The company\u2019s leadership keeps vital information from the public, the US government, its shareholders, and governments around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facebook shares dropped 4.9% to $326.23 at the close in New York. They had declined before the service disruption was reported, hurt by the whistle-blower\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d appearance.<\/p>\n
Facebook\u2019s internal apps also stopped working in 2019, following a dispute with Apple Inc. that halted some of the functionality of those apps on the iPhone maker\u2019s platform. The extent of Monday\u2019s disruption was more severe. Some workers even struggled to use Facebook\u2019s identity-badge system at offices during the outage.<\/p>\n