--- title: "Facebook Had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" description: "Facebook and Instagram users across the globe experienced outages for most of Wednesday starting around 1 pm EST and ending late Wednesday night. But why?" date: "2019-03-14" modified: "2019-03-14" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-down-outage" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "ddos" - "facebook" - "instagram" - "the digest" --- # Facebook Had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day ![Facebook and Instagram users across the globe experienced outages for most of Wednesday starting around 1 pm EST and ending late Wednesday night. But why?]() *\Image: Tag Hartman-Simkins\* ## You Had a Bad Day Facebook just had a very bad day. Facebook, including Messenger, and Instagram users across North America experienced outages for most of Wednesday, starting in the afternoon and ending [late the same night](). Third party outage sites suggested it affected users across [the entire globe](). [The media reported]() it was perhaps the longest interruption ever experienced by two of the largest social networks in the world. But nobody really knows what specifically caused the outage — beyond a [tweet today]() blaming the outage on a "server configuration change." "We've now resolved the issues and our systems are recovering," read the tweet. "We’re very sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate everyone’s patience." https://twitter.com/facebook/status/1106229690069442560 ## "Server Configuration Change" Theories swirled on Twitter about what could have caused the massive outage on Facebook, which didn't respond to questions from Futurism. Facebook quickly ruled out one of the most popular theories [via a tweet](): it wasn't a denial-of-service attack (DDoS) — an attack that involves countless infected computers being leveraged to attack a single target system. It was an outage that didn't just enrage individual users: Facebook likely felt the pressure from countless ad partners and businesses that relied on the network. Founder and CEO of free encrypted messaging app Telegram announced that the service signed up [three million new users]() on the day of Facebook's outage. ## Break 'Em Up The outage came days after senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren [announced a bold plan]() Friday to [break up tech giants]() Amazon, Facebook, and Google. "Unwinding these mergers will promote healthy competition in the market — which will put pressure on big tech companies to be more responsive to user concerns, including about privacy," Warren wrote in a [*Medium* post](). To make Facebook's terrible day even worse, the company was [hit with a criminal investigation]() by New York prosecutors about data deals Facebook struck with other tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Sony. A grand jury in New York requested records from two device makers who had active partnerships with Facebook, the [*New York Times* reported]() yesterday. The exact focus of the investigation isn't yet clear. **READ MORE:** [Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation]() \[*The New York Times*\] **More on Facebook:** *[Elizabeth Warren Shares Plan to Break up Facebook, Google, Amazon]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()