The 6-hour outage affected the use of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp globally, and some theories have emerged relating to the timing of the technical glitch.
ORONO, Maine — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are back up and running Tuesday after a 6-hour blackout Monday afternoon. The company said the outage was due to some of its network equipment being improperly configured.
The outage didn’t just affect personal use of the apps, it affected many businesses, as well. For example, the City of Saco was forced to stream its weekly city council meeting on YouTube instead of Facebook Monday night.
University of Maine student Dylan Ursino said it disrupted his use of Facebook Marketplace. He frequently uses the app to buy and sell fly fishing gear.
Dr. Amelia Couture Bue is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Univeristy of Maine. She said many employers rely on WhatsApp to do a majority of their business transactions.
Couture Bue said the timing of the outage was interesting. Many people have speculated the outage is related to the CBS “60 Minutes” interview with a Facebook whistleblower that aired Sunday night. Frances Haugen, a former employee of Facebook, outed the social media giant for choosing its own interests to make money over the greater good of the public it serves.
“A lot of these internal reports seem to really mirror the findings that I’m seeing in my own research … young women have more body image issues or disordered eating potentially they relate that back to Instagram,” Couture Bue said.
Couture Bue said so far there is no evidence proving the outage was related to the interview. She said instead of relying on these platforms to regulate their content that could be seen as potentially harmful, social media users are better off thinking about what they’re putting out there and what they’re taking in.
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