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Facebook, Instagram starting to come back after widespread outages

WhatsApp and Tik Tok were also having issues
Facebook
Posted at 10:59 AM, Oct 04, 2021
and last updated 2021-10-04 19:38:40-04

Several social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and WhatsApp are back up and running after users reported widespread outages Monday.

Facebook started to come back around 5 p.m. CT on Monday, but all the features weren't working properly.

Some users said they couldn't schedule posts, but the site is accessible.

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Downdetector, a website that reports telecommunication and social media outages, received more than 38,000 reports of a problem with Facebook at about 10 a.m.

In a tweet, Facebook said they were aware of the problem and were working on getting the issue resolved.

"We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

On Twitter, Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer issued an apology: "*Sincere* apologies to everyone impacted by outages of Facebook-powered services right now," Schroepfer tweeted. "We are experiencing networking issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible."

News of Facebook's outage comes less than 24 hours after former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen's interview aired on "60 Minutes" Sunday, to expose the social media company is aware its products and decisions cause harm.

Hours after the outage was reported, Bloomberg reported that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's net worth plunged $7 billion.

So, how did this happen? According to computer security writer Brian Krebs, the likely culprit is the social media sites possibly being removed from the DNS (Domain Name System) servers.

Downdetector also received more than 54,000 reports of a problem on Instagram at around 10 a.m.

According to the site, they received more than 22,000 reports of a problem on WhatsApp at approximately 10:30 a.m.

Down Detector also reported issues with Tik Tok, after they received more than 500 reports of a problem at approximately 1:30 p.m.