LMAO. It Could Not Happen To a Nicer Guy: Facebook and Company offline

I can’t help but laugh at the millions of people who may have been punching their phones or calling their service providers while frantically trying to figure out why Facebook and Instagram were not loading this morning in a feverish attempt to see what latest post needed an immediate “like” or to vent about someone’s vaccination status or post some photo of last night’s dinner as if people really care what you ate last night when so many around the globe are going hungry or my personal pet peeve the self involved fashion influencer who acquires designer clothes and hotel rooms to post photos of themselves in provocative poses as if they are adding value to the world. Yes the behemoth Facebook, Instagram, and What’s App social media platforms were down for the count in  sweeping outages. 

The issues started around 11:45 a.m. ET, according to DownDetector, and were hitting users globally.  By 12:30 p.m. ET, the outages appeared to subside, according to DownDetector, though tens of thousands of users were still reporting problems.   Shortly after noon, Facebook’s site returned a message that read, “This site can’t be reached.”

Whatever will people do? This addiction to social media – and I am just as addicted – is a problem. It serves to divide and conquer rather than unify. I personally do not understand Facebook’s aversion to cannabis with its irrational policies but it was okay to post the most horrendous political lies during the presidential election.

SAN FRANCISCO — Defying pressure from Congress, Facebook said on Thursday that it would continue to allow political campaigns to use the site to target advertisements to particular slices of the electorate and that it would not police the truthfulness of the messages sent out.

It seems the problem with Facebook and its attendant subsidiaries are not the platforms themselves but their leader who seems to be no knight in shining armour and is now consistently persona non grata. Ouch. 

“He’s fucking destroyed this town,” the V.C. said over a macchiato at one of the many trendy coffee shops that only accept payment via smartphone or, if you must, a credit card. “Any time there’s an inkling of innovation here, any time a new idea comes up, Zuckerberg either buys it and shuts it down, or copies it and shuts it down anyway.” The venture capitalist, who has known Zuckerberg for more than a decade, said the problem with Facebook goes far beyond fake news. It’s as if the company has sucked the air out of Silicon Valley itself.

Maybe the outage is a momentary good thing. It might give people a chance to do anything else and get their minds off misinformation and bickering with each other. Good or not so good for the thousands of people who now have little to do save for minding everyone else’s business, shares of Facebook were down more than 5% in midday trading Monday and the reason for the outage was not immediately clear. Oops. 

The outage came the morning after “60 Minutes” aired a segment in which Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen claimed the company is aware of how its platforms are used to spread hate, violence and misinformation, and that Facebook has tried to hide that evidence. Facebook has pushed back on those claims.

Do I smell suspense? Stay tuned. But I guess not to Facebook, Instagram, or What’s App in the moment.