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Many long-standing fears and criticisms of the platform’s policies appear to be based on Facebook’s own internal investigation, the material of which was relayed to the services and the Wall Street Journal by former employee Frances Haugen.
But as US senators prepare for an eagerly awaited hearing to testify about the documents, Facebook’s social network was shut down during a massive communication disruption that also affected other company-run platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp.
“Billions of users were affected when the service was completely down today,” said the Downdetector website, which monitors Internet connectivity.
Later on Monday, Facebook posted an apology via Twitter as the social network gradually resumed work.
“We have worked diligently to restore access to our applications and services. We are pleased to announce that they are now back on track, ”the company added.
Late on Monday, Facebook cited configuration changes as the cause of the outage, which disrupted the work of network routers that coordinate communication between social media data centers.
“This network disruption has had an increasing impact on the interconnection of our data centers and our services have stalled,” said Santosho Janardhano, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure for Facebook.
Cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs, commenting on the outage, said Facebook’s system was left without a “map showing the world’s computers how to find its various objects online.”
Photo from 123RF.com/ Gadgets
Not only did the outage inconvenience consumers, businesses and others who depend on the company’s services, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suffered a severe financial blow.
Fortune, a multi-million dollar world news website, reported late Monday that Zuckerberg’s personal wealth had shrunk by nearly $ 6 billion. USD compared to the situation of the previous day. The latest estimate shows that Facebook’s principal capital is approaching $ 117 billion. dollars (101 billion euros).
However, this day was very favorable for Facebook’s rivals.
The correspondence platform Telegram, which was the 56th most frequently downloaded free application in the United States, rose to fifth place, according to data from the information-gathering company SensorTower.
Administrators of the encrypted messaging app Signal reported on Twitter that “millions” of new users had signed up.
Twitter users may have scoffed at this Facebook flaw, but many others complained that they could no longer access their contacts, sources of income, or business tools.
But some were philosophical. Cindy Bennett, a New York-based baker, told AFP: “I think the world would probably be a better place if everyone didn’t know what everyone else is doing every minute of every day, every second.”
Just one of the crises
The outage was reported a day after a woman revealed her identity, leaking a large number of documents revealing that the company that runs the social network Facebook knew that its products incited hatred and were harmful to children’s mental health.
The 37-year-old data scientist from Iowa, F. Haugen, has collaborated with companies like Google and Pinterest, but in an interview with American television CBS, she said that working with Facebook Inc. left her with a “significantly worse” impression than any other company.
The world’s largest social media platform was at the center of the scandal when Haugen, an anonymous former speaker, shared the documents with US lawmakers and The Wall Street Journal. From this material it can be concluded that Facebook knew that its products, including the social network Instagram, harm girls.
Mr. Haugen requested supervision of the company.
Facebook has proven time and again that it chooses profit over safety. It subsidizes, it pays its earnings with our security ”, he warned.
“The version of Facebook that exists today is disrupting our societies and inciting ethnic violence around the world,” he said.
Facebook has worked diligently to crack down on allegations about the company’s practices and the impact of its social network, but the crisis is just one of many that have affected the company recently.
For years, US lawmakers have threatened to move to stricter oversight of Facebook and other major social networks, constantly charging that these platforms are undermining privacy, opening hands to spread dangerous misinformation, and harming the well-being of young people.
Such criticism has been voiced for a long time, but the laws related to social media monitoring have not been fundamentally changed, leading some experts to be skeptical about the possibility of change.
“It’s a situation where there will be a lot of smoke, a lot of anger, but little action,” said Mark Hass, a professor at Arizona State University.
“The platform itself will have to take something to feel the pressure from its users and employees,” he added. According to Hasso, the government could not effectively regulate the content of social networks in any case.
The chairman of Facebook’s board for political and international affairs, Nick Clegg, has vehemently denied allegations that the social network has become a “toxic” environment for teenagers, despite lawmakers asking the company a few hours earlier on the impact of its measures on the mental health of young people. consumer health.
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