WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook out of order: What's going on ?!

The three apps - which are all owned by Facebook and run on a shared infrastructure - stopped working this afternoon. Other products that are part of the same family of applications, such as Facebook Workplace, also stopped working.

Visitors to the Facebook page received an error message or that "their browser was not working". WhatsApp did not send messages or announcements, while Instagram did not display new content.

Ndërprerjet e Facebook ndodhin relativisht rrallë, por priren të jenë të mëdha dhe me ndikim, pasi prekin drejtpërdrejt 3 nga aplikacionet më të mëdha në botë.

Kompania është shpesh e fshehtë për shkaqet e ndonjë problematike dhe nuk ka tendencë t'i shpjegojë ato edhe pasi të jenë rregulluar. Në vitin 2019, për shembull, Facebook pësoi ndërprerjen e saj më të madhe në vite - dhe tha vetëm se kishte "shkaktuar një problem" gjatë "operacioneve të mirëmbajtjes rutinë".

In a transcript published in The Verge in 2019, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg notes that such interruptions are a "big problem". Any problem can often get people to start using competitors instead of the app, and it can take "months" to gain trust and get people back on Facebook platforms - if they come back.

As the New York Times reports:

Facebook has already dealt with a lot of criticism. The company has been attacked by an informant, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, who has amassed thousands of internal search pages and has since distributed them to news media, lawmakers and regulators. The documents revealed that Facebook knew a lot about the psychological damage its services were causing.

While some Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages typically only affect certain geographic regions, services are declining today worldwide. This includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Kuwait and more.

Facebook has not yet publicly commented on the ongoing outages affecting all of its services. The issue seems to be related to some kind of DNS problem affecting Facebook servers.

In a statement, WhatsApp acknowledges that its service is down:

"We are aware that some people are experiencing problems with WhatsApp at the moment. We are working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible."

Facebook's Andy Stone also commented:

"We are aware that some people have problems accessing our applications and products. We are working to get things back to normal as soon as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

Of course, there were also memes, which people could now only post on Twitter:

"Running to Twitter, as Instagram and Facebook do not work"

"What are we going to do now? G-mail ?!"

"Facebook and Instagram are not working. Has anyone ever thought of leaving them like this, just to see what would happen?"

Burimi: The Independent, The Verge, 9to5