On March 19, all platforms under Facebook company- WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram went through an outage. The issue started around 11PM IST where many people were not able to use any of these apps for a good 45 minutes.
Cause of outage
It is to note that the issues were caused by some technical issues, as Facebook stated. The company did not elaborate on the cause but since all of the Facebook app services were impacted, one can assume the glitch can be related to shared infrastructure. Notably, the company has been working on integration of its platforms- Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp so that these apps are able to communicate better as well as share features.
A Facebook spokesperson said, “A technical issue caused people to have trouble accessing some Facebook services. We resolved this issue for everyone, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
During the outage, WhatsApp users were not able to send or receive messages and Instagram users, at the same time, noticed error messages. Following this, Instagram tweeted, “Some people were having issues with their Instagram accounts earlier, but we’re back now. The issue has been fixed and we’re sorry for the trouble.” WhatsApp too took to Twitter to thank people for their patience and notified them that the app has started working again.
According to media reports, the outage impacted more than a million people across countries. The company also faced a glitch in December 2020 as Instagram DMs and Messenger went down. So far, the biggest outrage faced by the company was in March 2019 where apps did not work for almost a day.
WhastsApp-rival Signal meanwhile took the global outage as an opportunity to take a dig at the Facebook-owned instant messaging platform. “Signal registrations are through the roof; welcome everyone! Solidarity to the folks working on the WhatsApp outage. People outside of the tech industry will never understand how weird it sounds when someone says that they are “looking forward to some weekend downtime,” Signal tweeted.
India’s Paytm also took pot-shots at Facebook, tweeting, “Now you know why monopolies are a bad idea.”
