Startup Observer.com
  • Home
  • Industries
  • Innovation
  • outsourcing
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Headlines
  • Opinion
  • News
Home Business Facebook blames “faulty configuration change” for nearly six-hour outage
Business

Facebook blames “faulty configuration change” for nearly six-hour outage

by maria October 5, 2021
October 5, 2021
gawdo

By Subrat Patnaik, Eva Mathews and Sheila Dang

(Reuters) -Facebook Inc blamed a “faulty configuration change” for a nearly six-hour outage on Monday that prevented the company’s 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

The company in a late Monday blog post https://engineering.fb.com/2021/10/04/networking-traffic/outage did not specify who executed the configuration change and whether it was planned.

Several Facebook employees who declined to be named had told Reuters earlier that they believed that the outage was caused by an internal mistake in how internet traffic is routed to its systems.

The failures of internal communication tools and other resources that depend on that same network in order to work compounded the error, the employees said. Security experts have said an inadvertent mistake or sabotage by an insider were both plausible.

“We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change,” Facebook said in the blog.

The Facebook outage is the largest ever tracked by web monitoring group Downdetector.

The outage was the second blow to the social media giant in as many days after a whistleblower on Sunday https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-whistleblower-reveals-identity-ahead-senate-hearing-2021-10-03 accused the company of repeatedly prioritizing profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation.

As the world flocked to competing apps such as Twitter and TikTok, shares of Facebook fell 4.9%, their biggest daily drop since last November, amid a broader selloff in technology stocks on Monday. Shares rose about half a percent in after-hours trade following resumption of service.

“To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I’m sorry,” Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer tweeted, adding that it “may take some time to get to 100%.”

“Facebook basically locked its keys in its car,” tweeted Jonathan Zittrain, director of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

Twitter on Monday reported higher-than-normal usage, which led to some issues in people accessing posts and direct messages.

In one of the day’s most popular tweets, video streaming company Netflix shared a meme from its new hit show “Squid Game” captioned “When Instagram & Facebook are down,” that showed a person labeled “Twitter” holding up a character on the verge of falling labeled “everyone.”

Inside a Facebook group for ad buyers, one member wisecracked after service returned that “lots of people searched today ‘how to run google ads for clients.'”

Facebook, which is the world’s largest seller of online ads after Google, was losing about $545,000 in U.S. ad revenue per hour during the outage, according to estimates from ad measurement firm Standard Media Index.

Past downtime at internet companies has had little long-term affect on their revenue growth, however.

Facebook’s services, including consumer apps such as Instagram, workplace tools it sells to businesses and internal programs, went dark noon Eastern time (1600 GMT). Access started to return around 5:45 pm ET.

Soon after the outage started, Facebook acknowledged users were having trouble accessing its apps but did not provide any specifics about the nature of the problem or say how many users were affected.

The error message on Facebook’s webpage suggested an error in the Domain Name System (DNS), which allows web addresses to take users to their destinations. A similar outage at cloud company Akamai Technologies Inc took down multiple websites in July.

On Sunday, Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, revealed that she was the whistleblower who provided documents underpinning a recent Wall Street Journal investigation and a U.S. Senate hearing last week on Instagram’s harm to teen girls.

Haugen was due to urge the same Senate subcommittee on Tuesday to regulate the company, which she plans to liken to tobacco companies that for decades denied that smoking damaged health, according to prepared testimony seen by Reuters.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Tiyashi Datta, Nivedita Balu, Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru, Joseph Menn and Paresh Dave in San Francisco and Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Uttaresh.V, Shailesh Kuber, Anil D’Silva, Sonya Hepinstall and Sriraj Kalluvila)

www.gawdo.com
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linkedin
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
previous post
‘SKILLS INVESTMENT MUST FOLLOW FURLOUGH TO SUPPORT AN EVOLVING WORKFORCE’
next post
Analysis-Brexit cold turkey: UK tries to kick 25-year imported labour habit

You may also like

EHL partners Emirates to take new hospitality strategy...

June 28, 2022

Celonis and EcoVadis outline sustainable procurement partnership 

June 27, 2022

How can retailers launch an effective marketplace platform?

June 24, 2022
Editorial & Advertiser disclosureEditorial & Advertiser disclosureOur website provides you with information, news, press releases, Opinion and advertorials on various financial products and services. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third party websites, affiliate sales networks, and may link to our advertising partners websites. Though we are tied up with various advertising and affiliate networks, this does not affect our analysis or opinion. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you, or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a partner endorsed link.
gawdo.com
https://www.gawdo.com
  • About us
  • Advertising & Terms of Use
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

@2021 - All Right Reserved.


Back To Top
Startup Observer.com
  • Home
  • Industries
  • Innovation
  • outsourcing
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Headlines
  • Opinion
  • News
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT