What happened to Facebook? Why didn’t Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram work?

Facebook and other company platforms, including Instagram and the WhatsApp application, were hit by a global outage lasting nearly six hours yesterday. While conspiracies about a hacker attack and a huge data leak began to spread on the Internet, according to the KrebsOnSecurity portal, the outage was caused only by a bug in updating systems.

Simply put, the update removed a map that provided the world’s computers with technical details about the site. As a result, when someone enters a Facebook or Instagram website into a browser, the browser does not know where to find the page. Facebook later briefly described the problem in a blog post where she apologized for the outage.

The outage also limited the company’s employees

The problem was not only that it prevented billions of users from using the company’s platforms, but also affected its employees. Facebook employees use internal tools developed by the company for work and communication, which were also affected by incorrect updates.

This only complicated the whole situation and prolonged the duration of the outage, as employees could not access the tools needed to rectify the error. Some allegedly had trouble accessing the computers themselves, as the outage made it impossible for smart cards to enter the building.

It cost Zuckerberg a lot of money

CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized on Monday night for the problems and said the platforms were slowly returning online. However, this did not prevent the loss suffered by his property. According to the 9to5Mac portal, this several-hour outage cost him more than six billion dollars. The company’s shares fell by 5%, and by up to 15% compared to mid-September.

Facebook.com was for sale during the outage

During the outage, some domain resellers reported that Facebook.com was for sale. This is due to automated systems looking for registered domains that appear to be expired or unused. But apparently no one seems to have been able to buy it.

Facebook didn’t just bother with the outage yesterday

The outage began just hours after CBS broadcast an expected interview with Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who recently revealed a number of internal company documents to the world. They point out that Facebook knew that its services were causing mass damage. Nevertheless, he has decided to prioritize profit over solving the serious problems that arise on his platforms, including the spread of dangerous misinformation and hate speech.