Facebook outage: DNS routes apparently not available; Twitter chirps: Hello literally everyone

4 October 2021, 9:54 pm

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The Facebook logo on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite, in New York's Times Square, on March 29, 2018. (AP Photo/ Richard Drew/ File)

With Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms still down across wide swathes of the world, Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for Kentik Inc., says it appears that the routes Facebook advertises online that tell the entire internet how to reach its properties are not available.

Madory says it looks like the DNS routes that Facebook makes available to the networking world have been withdrawn. The Domain Name System is an integral element of how traffic on the internet is routed. DNS translates an address like “facebook.com” to an IP address like 123.45.67.890. If Facebook’s DNS records have disappeared, then no one can find it.

Facebook resorted to Twitter to update users on its difficulties:

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.

— Meta (@Meta) October 4, 2021

Twitter, meanwhile, chimed in from the company’s main Twitter account, posting “hello literally everyone,” as jokes and memes about the Facebook outage flooded the platform.

https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1445078208190291973

Facebook is going through a separate major crisis after whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, provided The Wall Street Journal with internal documents that exposed the company’s awareness of harms caused by of its products and decisions. Haugen went public on “60 Minutes” on Sunday.

Social media applications of WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Periscope, September 18, 2015. (HStocks/Istock by Getty Images/File)

Haugen also anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement alleging that Facebook’s own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation, leads to increased polarization and that Instagram, specifically, can harm teenage girls’ mental health.

The Journal’s stories, called “The Facebook Files,” painted a picture of a company focused on growth and its own interests over the public good. Facebook has tried to play down the research. Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president of policy and public affairs, wrote to Facebook employees in a memo Friday that “social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out.”

AP, ToI staff