Social networks and the decline of Facebook and Instagram: "It was a pleasant afternoon in the old world"

A site that monitors the work of social networks Downdetector.com received more than 10,5 million complaints from users who could not access them

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Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

After an outage that lasted several hours, Facebook, Instagram and Vocap started working again late Monday night CET.

For seven hours, until the malfunction was fixed, these platforms and applications practically disappeared from the Internet.

"For hours I tried to figure out what it was about, I restarted the router and the phone several times, and then my neighbor told me that it wasn't working for her either, so we realized that it wasn't up to us," 57-year-old Jovana Simonović told the BBC in Serbian , who has been using Facebook for almost seven years.

A site that monitors the work of social networks Downdetector.com received more than 10,5 million complaints from users who could not access them.

The downtime of these social networks is called the biggest in the history of Facebook.

Such outages are not uncommon, but they rarely last more than an hour and usually only occur on parts of the network.

This time the system went down all over the world and it was only after midnight that messages started to arrive and posts appeared.

"It's been a while, but a little break is good"

This unplanned disconnection came in handy for many, that is, they enjoyed the break from social networks.

"It was interesting, because finally my wife and I could talk, and not just stare at our phones," says Goran Rajković, who opened a Facebook account ten years ago, with a laugh.

Pensioner Gorica Sivački uses Facebook every day and likes to post photos and contact family members, commenting on someone's post.

The stoppage in the work of this social network did not affect her much.

"I survived by going to bed at nine o'clock in the evening," jokes Gorica.

She adds that she started using this social network when she moved from Belgrade to Žitni Potok, a village between Leskovac and Prokuplje.

"I have nostalgia for Belgrade, so that's why I made a profile," she says.

For 40-year-old Milena Radonjić from Požarevac, turning off Facebook and Instagram meant that she was left without her favorite bedtime ritual.

"Scrolling (searching the Facebook page) was lacking, but a little break is good," says Radonjić.

She adds that instead of searching on social networks, she decided to watch a movie.

What desilo?

In the Facebook statement, it is stated that it is not a hacker attack, but that the error occurred on their side when upgrading the software that runs the servers.

They were changing the setting of the backbone router that configures the exchange of information between their data centers, and an error was made there, which then cascaded to every server that Facebook uses in the world.

Simply put, Facebook changed the "address book" and then locked it internally, instead of sending it to everyone.

And without the new address book, no computer in the world knows how to find any Facebook service.

What are the reactions on Twitter?

The decline of Facebook and Instagram was most commented on on Twitter, the social network that was working at the time.

Even the administrators of the main Twitter account did not miss the opportunity to comment and joke.

"Hello, literally everyone," the message read, alluding to the fact that now the whole world has started using Twitter during the shutdown of Facebook and Instagram.

The comments were no less humorous among Twitter users in Serbia.

Some also commented on the fact that Zuckerberg lost more than six billion dollars in net worth during the outage (that is, he lost about one billion dollars per hour).

And for some, the disconnection was really hard.

Watch the video on how to recognize if some profiles on social networks are fake

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