Mark Zuckerberg Chief Executive Officer of facebook
By J. Jennings Moss
Facebook, you may have heard, is off to a scary October.
As the month got started Friday, Facebook had already decided to delay its planned Instagram for Kids because of privacy concerns.
On Sunday, a whistleblower who had already released thousands of pages of Facebook research revealed herself on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” bringing new life to her charges.
And then came Monday.
Facebook — along with all of its related applications, like Instagram and WhatsApp — went offline.
That meant that tools by which more than 3 billion people around the world use to communicate with friends, families, coworkers, clients and more were left looking for other avenues to connect.
And it had another impact, according to postings on Twitter: Workers couldn’t get into Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters because their badges weren’t working.
By 3:20 p.m., Facebook’s sites are back up, though not all features appear to be back online.
According to a report in the New York Times, the company’s security experts were still trying to find out what went wrong, but two members of the security team told the times that they did not believe a cybersecurity attack took place.
“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,” Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesperson, wrote on Twitter.
As the stock market closed on Monday, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) shares had dropped about 4.8% in value during the day, closing out at $326.32 a share. They opened at $335.50. Facebook’s stock had been on a downslide since markets closed on Friday at $343.01 a share. The company currently holds a $919.8 billion market capitalization.
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