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    Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp go down across US, Europe, parts of Asia

    Source: News Corp Australia Network:
    April 14, 2019 at 17:15
    Facebook’s social media platforms went down across much of the world on Sunday morning affecting an estimated 60-80 per cent of users. Picture: Joel Saget/AFPSource:AFP
    Facebook’s social media platforms went down across much of the world on Sunday morning affecting an estimated 60-80 per cent of users. Picture: Joel Saget/AFPSource:AFP
    All Facebook-owned social media platforms went down across parts of the US, Europe and Asia on Sunday, raising concerns about the social network’s stranglehold on billions of users.

    What happens when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all go down across much of the world — at the same time, and for hours? 

    All three social media platforms, including Facebook Messenger, were not loading as of early Sunday morning.

    Facebook users were frustrated after the site along with its other social media apps suffered outages.

    The company has since apologised.

    Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps displayed on an iPhone. All three social media platforms were not loading as of early Sunday, April 14. Picture: AP Photo/Jenny Kane
    Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps displayed on an iPhone. All three social media platforms were not loading as of early Sunday, April 14. Picture: AP Photo/Jenny KaneSource:AP

     

    Downdetector.com, a site that monitors site outages, showed Facebook had been down since 6:30am. EST (8:30pm. AEST) in much of the world, with thousands of reported outages concentrated in northeastern US, Europe and the Philippines.

    It was not immediately clear what caused the outage or how long the platforms would be down.

    The cause of the massive outages at Facebook are unknown. Picture: Joel Saget/AFP
    The cause of the massive outages at Facebook are unknown. Picture: Joel Saget/AFPSource:AFP

     

    The hashtags #FacebookDown, #instagramdown and #whatsappdown were all trending on Twitter globally.

    Twitter users were delighted that their chosen platform was still up and running.
     

     

    A spokesman for Facebook said: “Earlier today, some people may have experienced trouble connecting to the family of apps.

    ‘The issue has since been resolved; we’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

    No further explanation for the outage has been given.

    Netblocks.org estimated that approximately 60 to 80 nper cent of users experienced the outages and were unable to access their platforms, including Messenger.



     

    The reaction among users has been one of annoyance, frustration and mockery, especially at the lack of communication from the tech giant with users.

    Last month similar problems caused Facebook to go down for its longest ever outage: 14 hours.

    Critics fear that these problems could become worse or more frequent as Facebook plans to merge its services.

    Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

    There are more than 1.52 billion daily active Facebook users, according to the social media network’s website.


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