Facebook suffers third major global outage this year

Facebook suffered its third major outage this year, with users across the world unable to access the social network or its suite of services such as Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Facebook and Instagram were inaccessible on Sunday morning for several hours with both sites refusing to refresh, while messages were unable to be sent or received in WhatsApp or the Messenger app.

Downdetector, a site that tracks website outages, reported problems with Facebook starting as early as 12.30pm South African time. The issues affected users in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US.

A Facebook spokesman apologised for any inconvenience. “Earlier today, some people may have experienced trouble connecting to the family of apps. The issue has since been resolved; we’re sorry for any inconvenience,” he said in an e-mail.

The social media networks were back up and running by 3.30pm, but irate users turned to Twitter to vent during the blackout.

In late January, the Instagram app crashed, and WhatsApp users worldwide were also unable to send or receive messages. Last month, Facebook faced its most widespread and persistent system outage, with users unable to access the social network for more than 12 hours.

The outages add to the woes of Facebook, already embattled by revelations it has failed to safeguard user data or stanch the spread of hate speech, fake news and other forms of disinformation.  — Reported by Olivia Carville, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP