Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and even Oculus were all down for hours on Monday, with the social media giant going through one of the longest outages it has ever experienced. Even Facebook’s internal communications system and building access badges weren’t working, hampering employees scrambling to fix the problem.
“As the panic grew, Facebook ‘did not say what might be causing the outage,'” said Late Show host Stephen Colbert. “Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is: A just God?”
Facebook isn’t exactly a widely beloved tech behemoth, a fact that was highlighted by former employee Frances Haugen’s recent revelations about its negative societal impact. The company’s various platforms are well known for sucking up users’ data, hosting hateful and divisive content, and generally highlighting the worst of humanity. As such, the leaked documents actually aren’t that surprising.
“Are you telling me that a corporation chose money over the safety of consumers?” said Colbert, noting Haugen’s allegation that Facebook automatically promotes hateful content to its users. “Well, if the Facebook algorithm likes things that make you angry, it’s gonna love the news about the Facebook algorithm.”
