back to article Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram deplatform themselves: Services down globally

Facebook and its other social media sites, WhatsApp and Instagram, fell offline today. The outage started around 1540 UTC for Facebook and Instagram, and shortly after that WhatsApp. facebook Millions deprived of advertising ... What happened if you visited Facebook.com earlier. Click to enlarge "We’re aware that some …

  1. Conundrum1885

    It was only a matter of time

    A few days back a major certificate expired.

    Supposedly most service providers have long since stopped using it, but there might have been a few that were missed.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: It was only a matter of time

      Speculation in Silly Con Valley is that it's damage control to patch stuff that might still be accessible to the whistleblower who outed herself last night.

      Why a former employee would have any access at all has gone unreported (talk about bad security!) ... as has what Facebook can do to fix the barn door after the worm can was spilt.

      ::shrugs::

      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

        Re: It was only a matter of time

        Given the foul odour and the fact that it all exploded rather than merely leaking, I think the can may have been surströmming.

      2. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: It was only a matter of time

        Not because they're alleged to have a serious data breach?

        https://www.privacyaffairs.com/facebook-data-sold-on-hacker-forum/

    2. katrinab Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: It was only a matter of time

      It’s DNS. It is always DNS

      katrina@teto:~ % nslookup facebook.com

      ;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 192.168.0.3, trying next server

      Server: 192.168.0.2

      Address: 192.168.0.2#53

      ** server can't find facebook.com: SERVFAIL

      katrina@teto:~ %

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It was only a matter of time

        It’s always DNS … until it’s BGP.

        It’s BGP according to Cloudflare?

      2. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: It was only a matter of time

        People say that because DNS is the first port of call

        If your whole network is dead, it's the DNS failure you'll see

        If you manually set the host IP addresses in your config, your connections still won't work.

        Don't blame the DNS!!

        1. KieranTully

          Re: It was only a matter of time

          Except in this case it did work if you'd cached the host IPs. Perversely the BPG routing snafu only impacted their DNS resolvers.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: It was only a matter of time

          Nah, our place it was DHCP today, last time they had some major work done the <contract networkers who will remain nameless> reset the DHCP lease timeout to the Microsoft recomended of 8 days!! - it was previously set to 1 hour, consequently we ran out of IP addresses until I noticed the IPs that machines were reporting [169.xxx.xxx.xxx] (4 hours after the issue was reported and well before before Infrastructure figured it out) and got the leases reset. At least it makes up for deleting the global ISE database a couple of years ago...

          Anon as well...

  2. Zarno
    Pint

    Champagne for...

    A case of finest bubbly, vint, brew, or spirits to the poor techie who "hit the button", and I'm looking forward to the "Who, Me?"!

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: Champagne for...

      I expect that the news is causing a lot of people to check up their access to the FB sites - when they manage to access the site they will be served an advert so potentially there's a lot of income generated by this "problem."

    2. SuperGeek

      Re: Champagne for...

      "A case of finest bubbly, vint, brew, or spirits to the poor techie who "hit the button", and I'm looking forward to the "Who, Me?"!"

      It could have been a cleaner plugging in their crappy Dyson! :)

  3. Mark 85

    Facebook down..... side benefits?

    So after the panic in offices, etc. folks might actually be more productive then? Or just so upset they can't do anything. Families will have actually have to talk to each other with whatever consequences result from actual conversation.

    For a fleeting day or hours, we're back in the 90's.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

      One other side benefit / effect would be constipation for those sitting on the throne, without their connectivity. Their bowels would just not open !

      Stuck without the indernett !

    2. Alpharious

      Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

      Only old people use facebook. The hip kids are either on tiktok or are being jerks to each other on 4chan.

      1. PerlyKing

        Re: Only old people use facebook

        A few whippersnappers use Insta and even WhatsApp, or so I'm told.

        1. vtcodger Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Only old people use facebook

          A few whippersnappers use Insta and even WhatsApp

          use WhatsApp? Not today apparently.

    3. Mark 85

      Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

      Time to think "what if?". What if this is intentional on FB's part? They've been taking a lot of crap from many corners lately. This would be a way to get all their users upset and demand that the critics leave them alone.

      Wild speculation but after the last 4 years, I wouldn't put anything past them or anyone else.

      1. Nifty Silver badge

        Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

        "What if this is intentional on FB's part?"

        Maybe it's one of those tests, turn off the service for a while and see if anyone cares notices.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: folks might actually be more productive then

      I don't think so. My wife works at the helpdesk of a local college and got at least five calls from people complaining that the internet was down.

      She patiently explained that Facebook was down, and the rest of the internet, including the sites one could use to do work-related browsing, are ok. Most of the callers mumbled something like thanks, but one had the gall to ask if the helpdesk people "could do something about the Facebook".

      Again, a local college, a temple of knowledge and education.

      1. JimboSmith Silver badge

        Re: folks might actually be more productive then

        I was setting up a showroom and was testing different places to put the wifi box in. This was eventually going to be for staff use and to do the test I'd set up the wifi router in different locations around the (multistory) showroom. This was going well until the showroom manager grabbed me. She said she'd been able to connect to the wifi but her tv app (UKTV Play) wasn't working. I said there's no broadband yet, so no internet, so why would it? She said that on the adverts for it they just said you needed a "Network connection" and she had one of those. Sadly when I checked she was right it did say exactly that. She therefore decided not being very technical that the internet wasn't needed.

      2. I'm Brian and so's my wife

        Re: folks might actually be more productive then

        > the Facebook

        Prefixing it with "the" is a classic - thanks for the chuckle!

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

      And for those of us with family stuck abroad in a pandemic won't be able to talk at all. Yay!

      1. SuperGeek

        Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

        "And for those of us with family stuck abroad in a pandemic won't be able to talk at all. Yay!"

        Phones exist. You know, the function of the "smartphone" that is its main feature? Call them, and, you know, use your voice. Hard to understand in these days of keyboard tippy-tappy, I know.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

          Email never went away either. Neither did Usenet, nor IRC. All have been fully functional, non-stop, for a lot longer than facebook et alia.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

          "Phones exist. You know, the function of the "smartphone" that is its main feature?"

          No. It's main feature is "smart". If the phone part was the main feature it would be called a phonesmart, not a smartphone.

    6. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Facebook down..... side benefits?

      "Families will have actually have to talk to each other with whatever consequences result from actual conversation."

      A baby boom in June 2022?

  4. Binraider Silver badge

    I assumed they had collapsed under the weight of antivaxx crap being circulated.

    At least that's what it feels like some of the time. Only use the platform because it's a common point of contact to many people

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Wot anti-vax?

      Hmm, you'd greatly benefit to learn the difference between someone who is against 100% of vaccines versus someone who is merely questioning ONE experimental genetic mRNA therapy pathway misrepresented as a traditional vaccine; it's not a vaccine in any traditional sense.

      You're welcome.

      1. excession
        Facepalm

        Re: Wot anti-vax?

        What is it you want your vaccines to be like? Edward Jenner style where the festering pustules of an infected individual are broken open and said pus scratched into your skin? That is, after all, the traditional way.

        You’re right about the mRNA vaccines. They aren’t traditional. They are waaaaay cooler and way better than traditional. But to say they are “genetic therapy” grossly misrepresents the role of mRNA in protein synthesis. It’s quite literally the messenger. A datagram. Not persistent storage. God forbid we should live on a planet where technological progress takes place… and additionally, I’m sometimes surprised to find Luddites hanging out on a tech website.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

          Funny thing about mRNA vaccines. Every single candidate in the past failed early in the FDA 505(b)1 approval process. Every one. For reasons eerily familiar to those who have been watching VAERS since Dec 2020. Read the individual case records. Just like the Phase I/II clinical trials for the withdrawn candidates.

          If you think mRNA vaccines are "cool" I suggest you get up to speed on the published literature. They really dont have a clue about what they do to non target cells. Not a clue. If you have been reading this stuff for decades you will see it is mostly hand waving.

          Then there is the "approval". Its not a 505(b)1, like in every other general use vaccine. Its this weird combo of 351 and a BLA. Which is never used for legitimate vaccines. But the 351 will give Pfizers lawyers a great defense strategy against the product liability lawsuits.

          Then there is the strange fact that the only vaccine types available in western countries are types which have either all / almost all failed to gain approval in the past. The rest of the world uses attenuated virus vaccines. You know. The safe ones that have been used for over a century.

          Its a given that any one who throws around the term "ant-vax" hasnt a clue what they are talking about. Low information bien pensant mouton. All HCOV vaccines are like influenza vaccines, they dont give sterilizing immunity. So unlike the MMR and all the other vaccines you previously got (except Tdap). Its just a shot that wears off very quickly and provides very limited protection. Except unlike the flu shot most people are at lower risk and the adverse response event rate is about 200x. Not good numbers.

          Still happy about having completely untried, untested, LNP mRNA particles floating about your body? Where the cell boundary crossing mechanism for most in-vivo cells is a complete unknown.

          Sorry, I'll take my vaccines the old fashioned way. Attenuated virus vaccines.

          So when is something like VLA2001 going to be made available? To those of us who have actually read the f*cking published literature and know how this stuff works.

          1. excession

            Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

            Oh bore off with your pseudo-educated half-baked poorly understood biochemistry.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

              "pseudo-educated half-baked poorly understood biochemistry"

              If you bother to research, you'll find that there are numerous such experts who are sounding great caution, even concerns about mRNA vaccines.

              I'd also hope that education people are more open minded than those who aren't, but I do wonder sometimes.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

            Spot on!

          3. Justthefacts Silver badge

            Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

            #1 Nobody claimed the vaccines available would give sterilising immunity. Which is defined as “would prevent infection”. It would be great, but the data shows they massively reduce disease, but aren’t making so much of an impact on infection. But as has been repeatedly stated by most health authorities and govs, the best strategy we have is to *reduce the number of hospitalisations and deaths to an acceptable amount*. It’s the best we have, and in the face of the pandemic it will have to do.

            #2 Sterilising immunity is nothing to do with how long immunity lasts. I have no idea where you got that idea from, but it’s just wrong. In the circumstances, for exactly the same reason as flu vaccines, neither is it that relevant. You will probably need a Covid booster next year anyway, because next years strain will be different.

            #3 “Most people are at lower risk”. And some are at high risk. What’s your point?

            Have you really not understood that you are comparing your 1 in a million risk to an 85yr olds *1 in 4* risk?

            #4 And if you just don’t care, have you really not understood that if everybody took your attitude, your personal risk of dying from Covid eventually is *over 50%*. That is what will be on your death certificate. Covid isn’t the flu.

            Covid is not going away. Every year, it will come around and take its tithe of 1% of the population, unless we are vaccinated, because as you have ably pointed out this is a disease where immunity is quickly lost. 600,000 people dead every year in the U.K. is half the total deaths. Every year will be a new strain and people will get it again, and again, and eventually die of it. The only thing that stopped it last year was heroic measures, and we won’t be doing that again. That was a one-time kindness to save *your* life.

            You are going to get old too. Someday you will be 70. And the year after 71. And the year after that 72. Did you really think that the rest of the population would fall at the emperors feet, so you get skiing holidays when you are young, then when you retire everyone else gets vaccinated to protect *you*? No? On current statistics, it is improbable that *you* will make it past your 73rd birthday, and moderately likely you won’t even reach retirement age. Not with an annual tithe of 1% death rate.

            *Now* do you get it?

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

              "On current statistics, it is improbable that *you* will make it past your 73rd birthday, and moderately likely you won’t even reach retirement age. Not with an annual tithe of 1% death rate."

              Ah, I think I get it now. He's been vaccinated but doesn't want anyone else to get vaccinated. He's in charge of the pensions and is worried about the "time bomb effect" :-)

            2. Swarthy

              Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

              To put it in terms that these people will care about: The understaffed service industry jobs will only get more understaffed as those working them keel over because they can't afford the time off to recover, or to not spread the virus.

              If you think the lines to get your burger fix/haircut are bad now, imagine another couple of years of losing 1-2 people per worksite per year - with no replacements available.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

            I cannot tell from this if you are being sarcastic.

            Anyhow - irrespective of a formal OK from some sort of oversight body that needs a huge helping of paperwork to do anything,

            100s of millions of people having had it injected is a very wierd definition of "completely untested"...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        Re: Wot anti-vax?

        > [ ...] merely questioning ONE experimental genetic mRNA therapy pathway[ ... ]

        It's NOT experimental. It is fully approved by the FDA.

        [ ...] misrepresented as a traditional vaccine [ ...]

        No-one misrepresented anything. You invented an incorrect association of similarity between different kinds of vaccines on your own. No-one asked you to do that.

        [ ...] it's not a vaccine in any traditional sense [ ...]

        Sez you. You must be an expert in immunology and vaccines. Which explains why you're posting as Anonymous Coward.

        Different vaccines are made in different ways, and operate in different ways. The desired end result is always the same: artificially acquired immunity against a pathogen, which may be long-term or short-term.

        If what you understand by a traditional vaccine is what was being used in the 18th Century, you are about 300 years behind, and you will be very disappointed. No-one today manufactures vaccines the way they were being made centuries ago.

        You can either time travel backwards and get scratched with infected cow udder skin, or you can chose to live in the present.

        Either way, please stop spouting your ignorance as if it was some demonstration of critical thinking. It is not.

        Go back to Facebook when it's back up.

      3. LionelB Silver badge

        Re: Wot anti-vax?

        You mean the mRNA-based interventions that train your immune system to recognise a pathogen and thus produce an immune response when they encounter said pathogen - like, um, vaccines? The ones which have undergone the standard testing regime for medical interventions? No... I guess you must be talking about something else. I'd check the usual reliable sources, but unfortunately Facebook is down...

      4. Andy The Hat Silver badge

        Re: Wot anti-vax?

        A damn anti-vax troll on this site? It's like bloody Facebook is down or something ...

        1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

          Re: Wot anti-vax?

          Same AC has been here before.

          https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/06/11/linus_torvalds_vaccine_smackdown/

          Ctrl+F mRNA

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is terrible. I don't know who to provide my data to anymore, does anyone want my pin code?

    1. marcellothearcane
      Happy

      Pin code

      Just the three numbers on the back will do - now the usual API is down

      1. Zarno
        Joke

        Re: Pin code

        5386753096969420 999 12345

        It passes the check, but AFAIK it's not a real number...

        Icon because...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WTF

    Why is it always "some People" when millions (possibky billions) are affected?

    It is always the case ever there is massive booboo, the big boys always downplay the impact.

    SOME PEOPLE !!

    Hate that term now, coming from the hypocrites.

    1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: WTF

      Yes, "some people" as in some billionaires are affected. For millions of the pleb this is a blessing!!!

    2. SWCD

      Re: WTF

      You'll only hear MILLIONS and BILLIONS being used when the subject is number of active members.

      1. MrG
        Coat

        Re: WTF

        Active members? What active members?

  7. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Hope

    Let's hope it will never come back up!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear.

    Such a terrible turn of events. I can almost feel the IQ levels slowly rising around the globe.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Oh dear.

      On the contrary, the sheeple are losing what is left of their tiny little minds. I've had a half dozen telephone calls asking why "the Internet is down", all from people who never call me for support anymore because I don't do Redmond or Cupertino. Seems they are so desperate for their fix that they are willing to risk getting laughed at.

      In other news, the Realtor for a property I'm trying to purchase can't do business with me "because her Facebook is down". When I pointed out that I've never used Facebook when talking with her, she just looked at me blankly. Yes, we were standing talking to each other in person at the time. The mind absolutely boggles.

      1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

        Re: Oh dear.

        How much of the information you provide to her "in real life" is / has been / will be posted on Facebook? I suspect nearly 100%.

        Be afraid. Be very afraid.

    2. Amentheist
      Thumb Up

      Re: Oh dear.

      Nature is healing

  9. JDPower666

    Adguard DNS is also down (as a result of the Facebook outage according to them). Just spent way too long trying to work out why my mobile AND WiFi were randomly failing before hitting on Adguard being the issue:

    https://status.adguard.com

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But how can you tell your friends Facebook is down ....

    ... if Facebook is down so you can't post ...

    1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: But how can you tell your friends Facebook is down ....

      Imagine how many phones got smashed when people went into withdrawals!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But how can you tell your friends Facebook is down ....

      Depends. My Facebook friends are *real* *friends*, not online meat muppets.

      I have phone numbers, emails, etc. There are ways for those of us who have actual FRIENDS and FAMILY to contact! :)

  11. chivo243 Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    So odd... Was it me?

    Suddenly browsing seemed faster, cleaner and more wholesome! Plus I just reinstalled a Pi-Hole, was it me?

    1. Kobus Botes
      Happy

      Re: So odd... Was it me?

      @chivo243

      Sadly, no, it wasn't you (it would have been cool, though, especially if you could make them disappear permanently, or at will).

      I received a Telegram call from my son about an hour ago about this, and it took ages to connect. His stance is that Telegram is a bit overwhelmed/flooded with traffic, as people took to Telegram in order to communicate.

      According to him it was a DNS config gone wrong (heard from someone with knowledge about it), leading to all their DNS servers falling over. And, siince the servers are now unreachable, there is a scramble to get support into data centres in order to get physical access so the servers can be individually reconfigured.

      It is going to be a looooong day/night for the poor buggers!

      It did not affect me, as I do not partake of FB and their products (OK - I have to confess; I had to reopen my WhatsApp account, since my siblings objected to change to Telegram or Signal. They are heavily invested in the whole FB experience, sadly. I will probably get an avalanche of messages from them once Fb teeters upright again).

      1. Robert Sneddon

        Re: So odd... Was it me?

        According to some reports the keycard-controlled door access systems to the server farms are also down.

  12. Great Bu

    I just need someone to know

    Today for lunch I had a ham and mayo on white bread sandwich, bag of ready salted crisps and mint-choc brownie for lunch, washed down with a can of coke.

    This is my fall-back option for reporting same on Facebook.....

    1. Dave559 Silver badge

      Re: I just need someone to know

      Yeah, but: Pics or it didn’t happen! ;-)

    2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: I just need someone to know

      And may I be the first to comment that your lunch was not very healthy!

      If you're not going to eat healthy, then do it right...

      https://www.theregister.com/2016/02/12/post_pub_nosh_gatsby/

    3. Jamie Jones Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: I just need someone to know

      Jamie Jones likes this.

  13. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    Oh.

    Dear.

    What

    A.

    Shame.

    Never.

    Mind.

    1. Dave559 Silver badge

      include ‘windsor-davies.gif’;

    2. davidp231

      Oh dear, how sad, nevermind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Clarkson option:

        Oh no!

        Anyway....

  14. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Facepalm

    I like

    todays CNN story on what was leaked from farceborks HQ.

    That their 'algorithm' is designed to look at what you've clicked before , then offer you more of the same in the hope you click on that too

    Which explains why so many people are being led down the "anti-vaxxing/the left staged Jan 6th/ evil <insert todays hated minority> trying to take over the world' bollocks

    and why after I searched for a washing machine , got 3 months of washing machine adverts......

    1. Steve K
      Coat

      Re: I like

      and why after I searched for a washing machine , got 3 months of washing machine adverts......

      Sounds like you got taken to the cleaners by them?

      1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

        Re: I like

        Don't get all in a spin over it. Come clean. It'll all come out in the wash

        1. Swarthy

          Re: I like

          Gotta love the dryer humour of the Commentariat.

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: I like

        If anyone here in North America is sick and fucking tired of replacing mass-market washers and dryers after three to six years, there is an alternative: SpeedQueen.

        SpeedQueen, the folks who make the coin-op machines at laundromats, also make home machines that are just as bullet-proof as the commercial cousins. Better, they are NOT computer controlled, so you can actually fix them on the rare occasion that they break.

        They are not inexpensive, but chances are you'll not have to replace it in your lifetime. If anything, they clean better than mass-market machines. If you care about such things, they are made in the USA. And no fucking "lid lock"; either. Recommended.

        Hint: Spend the extra money and get the big one. On the rare occasion you need it, you'll be glad you did ... and when you use it with lighter loads than it is designed for, you under-stress it, making it last longer before wear-points need replacing.

        If the obvious escapes you, try speedqueen.com ...

        Not affiliated, don't own stock, just a satisfied customer, yadda ...

  15. Ben Cockburn

    3 Mobile also went down at the same time as Facebook and Virgin Media. The Downdetector charts are very, very similar. I wonder if they're all connected?

    1. _gh_

      i suspect the fb apps all try to very aggressively phone the fb servers rather than take a breather and try in a few minutes and flatline the infra-structure.

      once had a client set up a monitor on their site that broke and so called and downloaded one of our heavier pages every second while the site was "down" - rather than the usual once an hour til we blocked them

    2. willcor

      I suspect users are blaming their ISP for their lack of Facebook connectivity

      1. Mark 85

        I suspect users are blaming their ISP for their lack of Facebook connectivity

        Or the political party they dislike. Seems everything is political these days.

      2. IGotOut Silver badge

        "I suspect users are blaming their ISP for their lack of Facebook connectivity"

        I'd say the "No Internet Connectivity" on all my devices is the real giveaway.

        And as many will use Vigin for at least part of the back haul, it will affect other carriers as well.

    3. Alex Brett

      I suspect that is going to be users erroneously reporting Three as down when actually it's Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram that has the problem...

    4. katrinab Silver badge
      Facepalm

      No.

      Facebook, WhatsApp *and* Instagram are all down , so it must be an internet failure.

      Also for people who don’t block such things, all the tracking stuff elsewhere will be causing those elsewheres to time out.

  16. Tom 7

    Seems to be more than just FB and associated crap. The Reg is a bit treacly too.

    Every where I go on the internet is slow and or 404 ing.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Seems to be more than just FB and associated crap. The Reg is a bit treacly too.

      I expect so, there are FB scripts and like buttons infesting every corner of the web trying to connect to facebook.com and timing out, if you don't have something like uBlock installed.

    2. Electric Panda

      Re: Seems to be more than just FB and associated crap. The Reg is a bit treacly too.

      Same here. Lots of timeouts and appalling slowness on stuff that normally works fine.

  17. jake Silver badge

    In other news ...

    KGO television, Channel 7 here in the Bay Area is running a poll as I type, asking "Do you trust Facebook?"

    Voting is running "Yes" 3%, "No, I don't use it" 37%, "No, but I use it anyway" 60% ... Take that as you will.

    1. David Hicklin Bronze badge

      Re: In other news ...

      At least it adds up to 100%.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Has anyone...

    ...started a crowdfund to keep these sites down?

  19. IGnatius T Foobar !

    And Nothing Of Value Was Lost.

    Sure would be nice if it stayed down. The Internet would be a better place.

    These days I hear a lot of people who claim they don't want to use Facebook, but "they have to because" so-and-so is on it ... the reasons are just as lame as the reasons people claimed that they "have to" use Windows.

  20. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Film 4

    is blank screen / "PROGRAMMES CONTINUE SHORTLY" from 8:00 pm tonight, 4th October

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: Film 4

      Seems like it is only a problem of broadcasting the film 'A Knight's Tale', rather than an actual shutdown.

  21. DownUndaRob

    DNS?

    I'm seeing DNS failures for facebook.com across multiple root servers...

    1. Mandoscottie

      Re: DNS?

      makes you warm n fuzzy inside huh :) savour the moment.

    2. Jamie Jones Silver badge

      Re: DNS?

      No.

      The network has gone (BGP apparently)

      Even if you manually overrode your DNS entries with the Facebook IP addresses, you'd not be able to connect.

      You think DNS, because it's the first point of contact.

      No point trying to get through the front door - the whole house has disappeared!

      1. DownUndaRob

        Re: DNS?

        This entry found on /.

        The problem goes deeper than Facebook's obvious DNS failures, though. Facebook-owned Instagram was also down, and its DNS services -- which are hosted on Amazon rather than being internal to Facebook's own network -- were functional. Instagram and WhatsApp were reachable but showed HTTP 503 (no server is available for the request) failures instead, an indication that while DNS worked and the services' load balancers were reachable, the application servers that should be feeding the load balancers were not. A bit later, Cloudflare VP Dane Knecht reported that all BGP routes for Facebook had been pulled. With no BGP routes into Facebook's network, Facebook's own DNS servers would be unreachable -- as would the missing application servers for Facebook-owned Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus VR.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe it's deliberate

    Given that Zuck is short of a few cards in the social awareness department, maybe he ordered it offline himself to let the addicts feel what it would be like without their hourly fix?

    Yeah, I'm crap at conspiracy theories, sorry.

    :)

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Maybe it's deliberate

      Nah...you're not crap. I've been wondering that also. There's coincidence and there's intent. In this case.. could be either/or.

  23. Whoisthis

    Iran is rocking it

    The Ayatollah is taking no crap.

    The only country that can get it is Iran

    https://check-host.net/check-ping?host=www.facebook.com

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Iran is rocking it

      Or the US is *allowing* Iran to keep Facebook online as a form of reverse embargo ...

  24. NeverMindTheBullocks

    Scuttlebutt in the tech community on twitter is that it's a BGP issue.

    Allegedly they stopped advertising their BGP routes for reasons unknown atm. They can't get in remotely to fix it because they can't route to the network.

    Add to this the security system that controls access to the building needed depends on their LDAP servers, which are inaccessible, so they have also locked themselves out physically.

    Internal Comms are down because the corporate comms solution is FB Messenger and WhatsApp so no-one can talk to anyone else easily to come up with a solution.

    This could take a while.

    1. Chris Gray 1
      Meh

      Re: Scuttlebutt in the tech community on twitter is that it's a BGP issue.

      If so, the problem has spread somewhat. Here in Western Canada on Shaw cable, there were temporary issues for a few minutes - couldn't get to the government weather site, Slashdot or El Reg. I actually had to do some work!

      Hmm. I'd report my lunch too, but since I've never used Facebook, other than when I could follow links to pics, I guess that would be wrong.

      1. NeverMindTheBullocks

        Re: Scuttlebutt in the tech community on twitter is that it's a BGP issue.

        Every single FB tracking cookie or other service on the internet simultaneously trying to phone home and getting no answer, so trying again, and again, and again....

        1. Steve K

          Re: Scuttlebutt in the tech community on twitter is that it's a BGP issue.

          Yes, like the end scene in "Lawnmower Man" but in reverse

    2. NeverMindTheBullocks

      Re: Scuttlebutt in the tech community on twitter is that it's a BGP issue.

      Starting to get corroboration of this in the media.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-down.html

  25. vistisen

    It appears to be more than just Zucks cashcows: https://downdetector.com shows a lot of different sites having problems staring a few hours ago

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Zuck's Weeble Wobbled and Fell Down.

    Back when I was a kid, Weebles didn't fall down. *LOL*

  27. Bucky 2

    Never go live on a Friday

    It's easy to imagine a team leader saying, "Let's do the upgrade Monday, first thing. If something goes wrong, we don't want to be here all weekend."

    The upgrade in question might not have anything to do with the routers -- they might have taken the routers offline on purpose as part of damage control.

    The fact that they're being super coy about what's gone wrong might or might not mean anything.

    We could try to shame them into divulging the real problem by imagining a catastrophe that dwarfs anything plausible. They might be more willing to admit something if it were a trifle in comparison to the thing we imagined. That seems to be a gambit typical of Facebook users -- though I can't say I've seen it work effectively in practice.

    1. PerlyKing
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: We could try to shame them

      Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *snort* *wipes tear from eye*

      1. rototype

        Re: We could try to shame them

        Damn, someone beat me to it. Almost fell of my chair when I read that even their ID card system was locked out because it relied on the same systems.

  28. Bitsminer Silver badge

    Anonymous claims they know

    On twitter,

    // DNS A and AAA records for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have been destroyed

    and

    Friends don't worry, sleep.

    This may be taking credit (about 3 hours after the outage) for things not done by them.

  29. mrfill
    Coat

    [SOLVED]

    Have they tried turning it off and turning it back on again?

    1. LionelB Silver badge

      Re: [SOLVED]

      Yes - they're halfway there.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What I think happened

    FB has a new AI they just enabled.

    It was made to find the most vile, degrading, scourges to society on facebook, then completely block them every way possible from the internet.

    It worked, it took FB and their products offline. :)

  31. W.S.Gosset

    Tangent: State attack vector

    It occurs to me that should a State actor intend a military attack, splunging DNS at the same time might additionally degrade effective response due to lots of unexpected failures in the military's non-frontline. In particular, as time goes on, resupply will be increasingly connecting with civilian businesses. Not a deal breaker but people have mentally come to rely on the internet, plus procedures in scale for non-net non-electronic logistics have likely dropped a long way off the training schedule. Assuming they're even possible -- Australians would lose most of the phone system, for example, so you couldn't even ring someone to order stuff "manually". Massive coordination issues, even for trivia.

    Only a friction but potentially large in the critical early stages, and it's free and takes ~no combat resources. And every little helps.

    As we repeatedly see, it has quite large effects, it has a lot of unexpected consequences, and the system is startlingly open and reliant on queasy-making levels of trust and constant active management. Very easy to poison. Especially with some prep work on hijack-capabilities, especially via overlooked supporting/related kit rather than immediately within the DNS servers themselves. For an attacker, it would strike me as very low-hanging fruit.

    1. Wellyboot Silver badge

      Re: Tangent: State attack vector

      it is low hanging and was spotted long before the interweb.

      Fixing broken logistics chains is standard military planning, in every war the primary strategic targets are supply routes* feeding the enemy front line. DNS is just another target and the front line a bit more ephemeral.

      *critical points like factories, bridges, tunnels, rail marshalling yards & ports for the last two hundred years, communications hubs (telephone exchanges) were added a century ago.

  32. IGotOut Silver badge

    Other sites down...

    Look at many others and they will have "Log on with Facebook" Option.

    The same thing that took down loads of sites just a few months ago.

  33. Mark 85

    Maybe it's a money thing....

    Seems FB's stock is tanking today. Too soon to tell if it's because of the "crash" or yesterday's TV interview. Possibly both.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-04/facebook-whistleblower-says-company-places-profits-over-people

  34. Mandoscottie
    Joke

    just how do i find out what aunty gemima had for supper now! ill need to speak to her

    oh arse.

    can we make this permanent, it feels good :) (no farcebook i mean, not speaking to the dottled one) thats a laugh every couple of minutes, she's a funny old lady 87 and binned facebook for tik tok eons ago.

    "wuars ma teesh son?" videos

  35. Darkk

    I felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

    1. Adrian 4

      I'm pretty sure something wonderful has happened.

      If only it would last long enough for everyone to realise they didn't need it.

  36. Electric Panda

    Other issues?

    Anecdotally, I can also say that my BT Mobile 4G and home broadband have been very flaky this afternoon and evening. Extremely slow at times.

    Wondering if there was a wider issue out there on the internet somewhere.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Facebook said on Twitter...

    > "We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products.

    "We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing being accessed by our apps and products.

    TFTFY.

  38. Paul Herber Silver badge

    My mother

    My mother joined F/B yesterday. I think it's her fault.

  39. Barrie Shepherd

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2FB1P_Mn8

  40. Binraider Silver badge

    I'm not saying it's DNS...

    ...but it's DNS

  41. Adrian 4

    tech giant ?

    Facebook is not a tech giant.

    It's an advertising giant that relies on tech.

    It's pretty low in the actual tech stakes

  42. Satchik

    Schadenfreude

    Thoughts and prayers...

  43. ricardian

    What happened - https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage

  44. bliptone

    Likely BGP configuration error

    It seems like MANRS have helped to cut out incorrect BGP announcements from Facebook, which may be caused by incorrect BGP configuration and confusing external and internal announcements of BGP so that when external routes is to be announced internally, they end up being announced externally and thus causing route loops in BGP, at which time validating in surrounding ASes has no other choice but cut out announcements from this AS and with that all the service bearing routes. The surrounding ASes does what they have to do for this error not to spread further. It seems likely that the internal network was also not doing it's thing. One may speculate as to wither the internal configuration have not yet been able to transition to automatic generation of full configuration with the large amount of consistency checks needed, as it takes time to migrate everything.

  45. DownUndaRob

    And it's back

    This Australian user can access Facebook again, Some comments are still failing however...

  46. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    The undead riseth again

  47. spold Silver badge

    Faceplant, Instagone, What-scrapped.

  48. hoola Silver badge

    Whoopeee

    So a basic service to humanity.........

    Shame it has been fixed!

  49. Wzrd1 Silver badge

    Well, it could be an accident, but...

    There's all that deleterious news that strongly supports regulation of their content.

    Then, an apparent self-inflicted foot wound, while depriving users of service.

    I'm not bit on considering outside of Hanlon's Razor, but this is quite convenient as a warning.

    And given a warning, I say regulate the dog snot out of them..

    Now, thrice over and gone.

  50. Jonjonz

    And the world, briefly was a better place.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Facebook down?

    Brilliant.

    They should make a habit of it.

  52. Gort99
    Holmes

    Curious

    So a whistle blower opens a whole can of worms on Facebook then Facebook goes down and all of the headlines are for the outage and not the whistle blower.

    Suspicious? Moi?

    1. Swarthy

      Re: Curious

      That's what I've been saying. But no-one would listen 'cause I didn't post it on Facebook.

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