If Twitter seemed exceptionally busy on Saturday, it may have been due to a surge of people going there to vent about not being able to get on Facebook and Instagram.
People began to report problems accessing Facebook, the world’s largest social media site, at around 5pm local time. According to downdetector.com, a website that monitors online website outages, about 44 per cent on users were completely shut off from the site, with other users reporting difficulty logging in or loading photos.
British media reported that outage was caused by a change in Javascript code. Facebook access seemed to have been restored by 7pm, although some outages were still being reported.
“Earlier today some people may have had trouble accessing Facebook on the desktop version of Chrome for a short period of time. We’re back to 100 per cent for everyone, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience,” said a statement attributed to a Facebook spokesperson on several media sites.
Instagram, the photo sharing, social media platform owned by Facebook, was also down at approximately the same time, with 43 per cent of users saying their news feeds were down. No statement was available regarding Instagram.
While it was unknown just how much traffic on Twitter increased during that time, #facebookdown was in Twitter’s Top 5 trending topics in the US.
Users on Twitter joked about being forced off of Facebook and Instagram. @Devmittal_civ16, a user from Varanasi, India posted on Twitter: “Because Instagram and Facebook are down, I actually talked to my family. They seem like really nice people. #instagramdown #facebookdown”
Facebook boosts over 2 billion users world-wide, and, according to globalmediainsight.com, there are over 8.7 million Facebook users in the UAE. There is an estimated 1.2 million Instagram users in the country.
