Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Down for 5 Hours... "Worst Since 2008" (Update)

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] The outage of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has continued for more than five hours. As the outage prolongs, Facebook appears visibly flustered.

On the morning of the 4th (local time), after the websites and apps of Facebook and its affiliated companies went down, users worldwide are still unable to access Facebook services.

Immediately after the outage, Facebook stated, "We are aware that some users are experiencing difficulties accessing the service," but as the outage extended into its fourth hour, Mark Schroepfer, Facebook's Chief Technology Officer (CTO), issued a statement explaining, "There is a network issue. We are doing our best to restore service as quickly as possible."

US economic broadcaster CNBC described this blackout as "the worst since 2008, when a bug prevented 80 million users from accessing the service for a day," highlighting the severity of the situation. Currently, Facebook's user base has grown to 3 billion, incomparable to that time.

As the outage prolongs, there are concerns that this incident could have catastrophic consequences for internet companies.

According to CNN, Doug Madory, director at network monitoring firm Kentik, said, "I don't think I've ever seen an outage of this scale at a major internet company." Madory warned of the serious impact, stating, "For many, Facebook is the internet itself."

CNN reported that a company of Facebook's scale being inaccessible for over three hours signals that a quick resolution is unlikely.

Facebook also experienced a one-hour outage in 2019.

Even if the problem is resolved, it is expected to take considerable time before access is fully restored. Ronald Deibens, senior engineer at Netscout, predicted, "It may take time for the corrected information from Facebook to propagate worldwide."

Facebook is facing ongoing turmoil, with an internal whistleblower coming forward and launching public attacks, followed by the service outage incident.

Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager at Facebook, appeared on CBS's current affairs program '60 Minutes' the previous day, stating, "There have been ongoing conflicts of interest between the public good and private profit at Facebook," and "The company chose to prioritize generating more revenue."

Haugen claimed that Facebook knowingly concealed evidence despite being aware that the platform was being used to spread misinformation. She is scheduled to testify publicly before the US Senate on the 5th regarding Facebook.

CNBC reported that with Haugen's whistleblowing repeatedly covered by the media, Facebook is facing its greatest crisis since its founding.

On this day, Facebook's stock price plummeted 4.89% compared to the previous day amid continuing negative news, closing sharply down.