Facebook experienced one of its worst outages on Monday, leaving users worldwide unable to access Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for several hours. The nearly six-hour disruption was caused by faulty configuration changes on the company's backbone routers, which coordinate network traffic between data centres. The cascading effect halted services, though Facebook stated there was no evidence of user data being compromised.
Downdetector described the outage as the largest it had ever seen, recording over 10.6 million problem reports globally, with the majority from the US, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Users attempting to open Instagram or Facebook saw error messages, while WhatsApp acknowledged issues on Twitter, urging patience. The outage forced Facebook to communicate via Twitter, where its spokesperson Andy Stone apologised for the inconvenience.
The disruption had far-reaching consequences, affecting countless businesses and individuals who rely on these platforms for communication and commerce. Small businesses, from restaurants to delivery services, reported lost revenue, with some in India noting their operations were entirely halted. The outage highlighted the global dependency on Facebook's ecosystem, including its advertising network, which many websites and apps depend on.
Following restoration of services, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised, acknowledging how much users rely on the platforms to stay connected. The company's engineers traced the root cause to router configuration changes that interrupted data centre communication. Services slowly resumed by late Monday, with Facebook issuing a public apology to its global community of users and businesses.
