If yesterday you noticed failures in Meta products such as Facebook and Instagram, it is because a problem has occurred. It has already been solved, but we will tell you the reasons for the fall of Facebook and Instagram.
Apparently it was a failure that, although Meta spokespersons did not indicate the exact reason, one of the causes occurs once a year. Let's learn more details about these problems that will cause Facebook and Instagram to crash for several hours.
What problems did users have with the fall of Facebook and Instagram?
Facebook and Instagram users stated that on Tuesday, March 5, they had errors when using their accounts in social networks. It was a problem when entering the application and it expelled them from it, denying them access. Some users expressed their belief that the platforms "had been hacked."
Faced with this situation, and hours after what happened, Meta Communications Director Andy Stone spoke from his X account, indicating that: the fault had been resolved as quickly as possible, and apologized to all those affected. Here is the tweet where he indicates it:
Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience. https://t.co/ybyyAZNAMn
- Andy Stone (@andymstone) March 5, 2024
Despite Stone's efforts and message, the number of users who expressed concern about the problem exceeded 500 (according to data from Down detector). After 30 minutes, the number of users that continued indicating failures dropped to 200 thousand. Regarding Instagram, the number of reports registered reached 73 thousand, while in WhatsApp and Threads the number has been lower than this.
What caused the fall of Facebook and Instagram?
There are many causes that could have caused the fall of Facebook and Instagram, considering its history of failures or the possible actions that could be executed. We will talk about each of them so that you are aware of what happens when you cannot access these social networks worldwide:
Technical errors
A technical error occurs when from the Meta r development officemake changes to the configurations of the company's routers. That is, by changing a command or communication method between servers or data centers and network traffic. This is not the first time it has happened and in 2021 Facebook stopped working for 6 hours after an engineer from the social network executed an erroneous command by mistake.
Cyber attacks
Cyber attacks on Meta servers are very common, considering the great information that these devices store. However, the platform has security levels that detect these intruders and to avoid major problems, they stop the service. Also, if a problem occurs on the company's domain name, the servers do not detect it and simply do not display anything. In 2019 something similar happened where Facebook stopped working for almost 24 hours.
What consequences did the fall generate?
The consequences of this fall of Facebook and Instagram have repercussions, not only in communication, also in the global economy. Stopping an advertisement or paid advertising on these social networks represents a loss for Meta and its shareholders. Furthermore, the mass of users turn to other platforms like X where they went to indicate that a failure had occurred.
Factors linked to the economy
A factor linked to the economy is the seller accounts who see how the process of marketing their products through social networks is reduced, for a time. This implies communication failures with customers, making it impossible to publish new products, respond to requests and more.
When the engineer executed that code by mistake in 2021, it generated losses between 30% and 70% in the advertising service, compared to the previous period. Furthermore, with that same failure, his shares fell by 5,4% and additional losses quantified at 100 million euros were generated.
Social and emotional effect
A social and emotional effect that generates a fall from Facebook and Instagram or any other social network is known as FOMO (Fear of missing out). This has been discovered by a team of scientists through a study published in "Computers in Human Behavior called: Without social networks for six hours? The emotional experience of Meta's global disruption.
In it they explain the impact it generates in the society dependent on social networks, when it is interrupted (for any reason) and they can't use it for hours. In addition, they highlighted that the level of stress, irritability, frustration and impatience increase.
According to the article, this was linked to three factors: age, marital status and number of hours you spend on the screen. For example, a young single man who spends hours watching the screen exploded with greater force if we compare it with an older, married person who spent fewer hours on the screen.
This fall also affected Google and its YouTube services, Google Drive, Google Play Store, Google Workspace and others. These, as well as Meta spokespersons, did not indicate the real reason, but the important thing is that they solved the problem. If you were a victim of this failure you already have some idea of what happened and you can tell your experience in the comments about that day.