It’s not clear exactly why Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, went offline a little after 12:00 p.m. Monday.
Local security experts tell Sebastian Daily that the problem is on its front end, the DNS, which may be misconfigured and not allow people to connect to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The DNS translates website domain names into IP addresses so computers can connect to the host.
Minor network outages are common from time to time, but this has been the worst ones for Facebook with its family of services all going dark at once.
“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook said on Twitter. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
Facebook is having a tough week already, with a whistleblower appearing on 60 Minutes Sunday night accusing the company of promoting hate speech for profit. In addition, the company stock tumbled nearly 5 percent on Monday.
We can only guess that the outage is severe as there doesn’t appear to be any quick fix for the issue.