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Facebook Services Disrupted in global Outage
A significant technical issue caused widespread disruptions to Facebook’s suite of services on Tuesday, leaving millions of users unable to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The outage, which began around 10:40 AM eastern Time, lasted for several hours, impacting users across North america, Europe, and parts of asia.
Impact on Users and Businesses
The sudden unavailability of these platforms caused considerable frustration for individuals who rely on them for communication and facts. Businesses that depend on Facebook and Instagram for marketing and customer engagement also faced significant challenges. Many companies reported being unable to reach their audiences or process orders during the outage.
Initial reports indicated that the problem stemmed from a faulty domain name system (DNS) configuration. DNS translates website names into IP addresses, allowing users to access online content. A misconfiguration in Facebook’s DNS settings effectively blocked users from finding the company’s servers.
| Platform | Impact | Estimated Users Affected |
|---|---|---|
| Complete Inaccessibility | Approximately 2.91 billion monthly active users (Q4 2023) | |
| Inability to Refresh Feed, Post, or Send Messages | Approximately 2 billion monthly active users (Q4 2023) | |
| Message Delivery Failures | Approximately 2 billion monthly active users (Q4 2023) |
the Technical Root Cause
Experts believe the issue originated with border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which routes internet traffic.Facebook inadvertently withdrew its BGP routes, essentially announcing to the internet that its servers were unreachable. This caused a cascading effect, disrupting access to all three platforms. The incident highlighted the fragility of the internet’s infrastructure and the potential for a single point of failure to cause widespread disruption.
Did You Know? Facebook’s outage coincided with a whistleblower’s testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, adding another layer of complexity to the situation. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, has been releasing internal documents alleging that the company prioritized profits over user safety.
Facebook engineers worked
