--- title: "Facebook Employees Have Reportedly Been Locked Out of Company Offices" description: "Facebook's internal communications tools were knocked out, leaving employees scrambling. Worse yet, some employees couldn't even physically get to work." date: "2021-10-04" modified: "2021-10-04" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-employees-have-reportedly-been-locked-out" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "facebook" - "internet" - "iot" - "the digest" --- # Facebook Employees Have Reportedly Been Locked Out of Company Offices ![Facebook's internal communications tools were knocked out, leaving employees scrambling. Worse yet, some employees couldn't even physically get to work.]() *\Image: Futurism\* ## Rotten Day Facebook is having an absolutely rotten day. The platform is down due to an [apparent issue]() with its DNS servers. That means it's missing out in untold millions of dollars in revenue. The company was down almost five percent in share values Monday morning, [according to *MarketWatch*](). It's the company's [worst outage since 2008]() — and we have no idea what caused it. Even Facebook's internal communications tools were knocked out, leaving employees scrambling. Worse yet, some employees reportedly couldn't even physically get to work because the company's computer systems had failed on such a basic level. "Was just on phone with someone who works for FB who described employees unable to enter buildings this morning to begin to evaluate extent of outage because their badges weren’t working to access doors," *The New York Times* reporter Sheera Frenkel wrote in [a tweet](). ## Major Outage Employees also struggled with making calls from work-issued cellphones, according to [Frenkel's report](), and more [can't access conference rooms]() that are also on the company's computer system. And Workplace, Facebook's internal communications platform, is also down, meaning that it's effectively a "snow day" for much of the company, according to the *Times*. It's been a tough couple of weeks for the company, which was already facing a mountain of scrutiny before the outage hit. Facebook [has been under fire]() by lawmakers after the company announced plans to launch "Instagram Kids," a highly controversial new product aimed at minors. The news also comes a day after Frances Haugen, a former Facebook manager and whistleblower behind the leak of a [gigantic cache of documents](), came [was interviewed by *CBS*](). For now, all we can is wait for Facebook to make its eventual return. According to [a tweet]() by *New York Times* tech reporter Mike Isaac, "Facebook has dispatched a small team to one of its California data centers to try and manually reset its servers in an attempt to fix the problem." It's an unusually quiet day on the internet — but it certainly not for Facebook's crisis response team. **More on the outage:** [*Fact Check: Is Facebook Down Because 1.5 Billion Users’ Data Was Stolen?*]() ## 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]()