Facebook Says It's 'Working' To Resolve Outages Across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger

Facebook has had problems loading images, videos, and other data across its apps today, leaving some people unable to load photos in the Facebook News Feed, view stories on Instagram, or send messages in WhatsApp. From a report: Facebook says it is aware of the issues and "working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible." The issues started around 8AM ET and now appear to be clearing up, according to DownDetector, which monitors website and app issues. The errors aren't affecting all images; many pictures on Facebook and Instagram still load, but others are appearing blank. DownDetector has also received reports of people being unable to load messages in Facebook Messenger.

And yet...

[sconeu]

All pictures in ads are displaying perfectly... of course.

Re:

[Harold Halloway]

What ads?

Re:

[phantomfive]

They come from a different server, Facebook might not even own the ad server. A typical setup for ads is that each advertiser has their own ad server (or more likely, rents space on an ad-server company's server). When you load a web page, companies will 'bid' in realtime to show you an ad. Whichever ad wins, a request will go out to their ad server.

If the ad server is down, then the request will go to the first runner up. Then the second runner up. Until seven companies have been given the chance to sho

Did you suspend them all by mistake?

[iTrawl]

I don't know how many people realise that when you get suspended on Facebook you are also put behind bars on Messenger. I found this out from a friend the other day (I don't know what she did exactly to get suspended) that she could receive Messenger messages and calls, but couldn't send or make any of them. If she hadn't had a separate communications channel it would very much look like ghosting.

Please, take your time.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Facebook says it is aware of the issues and "working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."

Please, take your time. Take until this time next year if you want.

Re:

[antdude]

Or forever. ;)

Oh no.

[jimbo]

The horror!

And I thought I was banned again

[pgmrdlm]

Damn, it didn't happen.

Please leave it as is!

[grumpy-cowboy]

Now my feed load really quickly without stupid images/videos/... People will have to post only text messages which is really nice! :)

And what happens when Libra payments go down

[xack]

This is why even Sweden recommends emergency cash. Facebook’s infrastructure is simply not robust enough for purposes like money transmission. Anyone using Facebook services for anything mission critical deserves to be laughed at.

It's also Facebook itself

[rnturn]

I went to a friend's FB page today and posted images weren't displaying. Instead I saw a links displayed in its place that read (something like): "image may contain: trees, house, sky" or "image may contain: one or more people". Oh! The horror! As though those are things that might offend me, I guess. In some cases I could follow the link and see the image. Other times all I got was a black screen.

It's sort of telling that they don't want to admit that their flagship product's censorship algorithm is fault

Re:It's also Facebook itself

[CohibaVancouver]

Instead I saw a links displayed in its place that read (something like): "image may contain: trees, house, sky" or "image may contain: one or more people". Oh! The horror! As though those are things that might offend me, I guess.

Sigh.

I realize this is Slashdot so you're required to blame the CENSORSHIP ALGORITHM and BEING OFFENDED but if you're willing to remove your tinfoil hat for a moment you might realize this is merely the metadata that is added to the image (via A.I.) so blind people can use Facebook...

If you're blind you appreciate it when your screenreader can use these descriptions to say "image may contain: trees, house, sky"

Re:

[rnturn]

Offended? Hardly. You seem to have missed the "humor" tags.

BTW, if that's how their "AI" works, IMHO, it could use a little more "I". Normally, browsers for the blind used the "alt" options to contain those descriptions and be ADA-compliant. Today, it seems FB's "AI" decided to randonly not bother to include the "img" option. I'm pretty sure that most web site viewers want both "alt" and "img"---and "height" and "width" while you're at it. If they're trying to be compliant in a NIH fashion, then shame on t

Re:

[Nexus Unplugged]

"image may contain: trees, house, sky" or "image may contain: one or more people". Oh! The horror! As though those are things that might offend me, I guess.

Those descriptions are just alt text put there for accessibility reasons, to help out users such as those who use a screen reader or other assistive technology, and your browser displays it to you when it can't load the image itself. If the image contains text, Facebook will also include their attempt at transcribing it. The "Image may contain" phrasing isn't meant to serve as a "trigger warning" or anything, it's just a reminder that the caption is generated by Facebook's AI (notoriously less-than-perfect)

Info, info everywhere, and not a thought to think

[shanen]

I really have to wonder how many of today's Slashdotters need an explicit reference to the original source: "Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." But if I websearch for the new form, there are already 9 hits. About 200 hits with "data" for "info".

Having just witnessed another fake controversy and communications failure over on Twitter, my reaction to this story was to think about people who are relying on these gawdawful communication channels for information about how to live their lives. Inc

Strange effect

[Decode Web]

I though only I am affected.. ðY