Monday, October 04, 2021
SOMETHING WENT WRONG . . .
Facebook is down, along with Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus VR
It’s DNS
Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the company over a whistleblower’s accusations and its handling of research data suggesting Instagram is harmful to teens, the company’s entire network of services suddenly went offline. On Twitter, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone says, “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.”
A peek at Down Detector (or your Twitter feed) reveals the problems are widespread. While it’s unclear exactly why the platforms are unreachable for so many people, their DNS records show that, like last week’s Slack outage, the problem is apparently DNS (it’s always DNS). Cloudflare senior vice president Dane Knecht notes that Facebook’s border gateway protocol routes — BGP helps networks pick the best path to deliver internet traffic — have been “withdrawn from the internet.”
We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing Facebook app. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
— Facebook App (@facebookapp) October 4, 2021
Instagram.com is flashing a 5xx Server Error message, while the Facebook site merely tells us that something went wrong. The problem also appears to be affecting its virtual reality arm, Oculus. Users can load games they already have installed and the browser works, but social features or installing new games does not. The outage is thorough enough that it’s affecting Workplace from Facebook customers and, according to Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook’s internal sites.
There’s no word yet from Facebook about what may be causing the problem or when those sites, including Messenger and WhatsApp, will be operational again, but we will update this article with more information when it’s available.
HOW REFRESHING: insightful Comments On-The-Record
Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the on-the-record dept
On second thought...
It seems to me that most of the players will simply move offshore, if they haven't already done so, and thus the IRS will come up short in thet
Not very long after that point, you can expect the VPN sector to become the single largest slice of the pie vis-a-vis what internet service is most often used by Americans. And overseas payment processors will become the second largest service providers.
This is not going to work out the way Nadler thinks it will. But then again, why should a Congresscritter ever think about the ramifications of any legislation - it won't apply to him/her, and they still get the same paycheck at the end of the month.
If you were to ask me, I'd say that accountability should start at home, where the laws are made in the first place. Most plumbers will tell you that shit does not run uphill.
> In second place, it's That One Guy with a response to the investigation that revealed how Minneapolis cops, in the wake of George Floyd's murder, started refusing to do their jobs:
A VERY telling response
If their response to the conviction of a murderer is to bunker down in case they are next they are basically admitting that they would and do engage in similar behavior and they don't like the fact that there might actually be consequences for that sort of stuff now.
Between the cowardice, admission of corruption and refusal to do the job it sounds like the city has a prime opportunity to really trim the budget by getting rid of some useless(at best) employees and letting them find jobs more suited to them.
> You might have noticed the title "on second thought" for our first place comment above, so for editor's choice on the insightful side, we'll start out with sumgai's first thought about the SHOP SAFE Act:
Remember.....
... when the major platorms held an "Internet Blackout Day", back when Congress (the opposite of progress) was debating SOPA/PIPA?
If seller's platforms, and not just the biggies like Amazon, Alibaba, etc., were to simply shutter their portals for 24 hours, you can bet that Nadler et al will get more than an email-inbox full of angry messages to the effect that he'd better have another think about this.
> Next, it's arp2 with another response to the Minneapolis police story:
I've never understood...
How many of the standards for my high school retail job were higher than a cop. If I half-assed it, I would get a warning then fired. If I didn't help someone I didn't personally like with just as much gusto as someone I did like, same.
If someone was yelling in my face, my 17 year old self had to have more composure and restraint than a cop.
> Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous comment about the Spider Man copyright termination fight:
Copyright, copyright
Friendly neighborhood Copyright
Wealth and fame
Its adored
Settling its reward.Lookout!
Here comes the copyright.
> In second place, it's Upstream with a comment about Texas's social media censorship bill, and the ongoing fight over speech versus "conduct:
Redefining everything
Moving your mouth while slowly exhaling thereby making sounds to communicate audible information is now conduct, not speech!
1984 was not subtitled A Beginner's Guide to Dystopia.
> For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a response from Glenn to our post about Section 230 and "the rule of fences":
Euphemistically-speaking... political drunks keep running into the fence, so they figure the best thing to do [to keep from hurting themselves on the fence] is to get rid of the fence.
Politics as usual.
Finally, it's an anonymous response to a comment asserting that Ken White's excellent response to a bogus threat letter induced hunger by mentioning poutine:
That was the intent.
Ken is clearly in the pocket of Big Cheese Curd.
That's all for this week, folks!
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