Summary Messages flooded in from countries around the world
(Web Desk) – Facebook has crashed for users around the world in a major outage on Friday.
The website went offline for users at just after 9pm Pakistan Standard Time (PST) – throwing up a mysterious error message.
#BREAKING: Facebook has crashed again! pic.twitter.com/6uQmYFBgaN
— Preston Phillips CBS 5 (@PrestonTVNews) August 3, 2018
Outage tracker Down Detector reported a huge spike in complaints from frustrated Facebook users.
is anyone having problems with #facebook right now? my apps keep crashing and the websites won t load smh
— snxwgxte (@snxwgxte) August 3, 2018
Messages flooded in from countries around the world, including the Pakistan, UK, USA, India, Brazil and beyond.
Yes, Facebook is down at the moment. #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/YPh71OA9P0
— FTTM (@FTTMPH) August 3, 2018
You know you re a #socialmedia professional when your first instinct is to check Twitter when you suspect that Facebook is down. #FacebookDown
— Danielle Zimmerman (@Zimm102090) August 3, 2018
Facebook is showing a completely blank white screen on desktop versions and is showing an old feed.
Why facebook whyyyyy pic.twitter.com/4SoEsA2ZRv
— k. (@tineee419) August 3, 2018
It is unclear what caused the problem, which appears to have been resolved. One annoyed user wrote: “Totally down for me. Other sites are working so it’s not my internet.”
#Facebook is back up for me. Putting my tinfoil hat away now and changing my password to be safe. pic.twitter.com/zD8Bmgs420
— Alex Palombo (@AlexPalombo) August 3, 2018
Anothe user wrote:
Facebook is down.
— Eric Mark Do (@EricMarkDo) August 3, 2018
Social media managers everywhere: pic.twitter.com/Cs2rvs3ThM
It comes just two days after another Facebook crash saw users greeted with “Service Unavailable” when trying to log on.
Facebook-owned service Instagram also went offline for users earlier this week.
It’s not clear what’s causing the problems, but it could be an issue with Facebook’s servers.
Similarly, Facebook could be suffering cyber-attacks, overloading vital systems that keep the website online.
Facebook hasn’t detailed exactly what today’s issues were caused by.
Facebook is the world’s most popular social network.
Latest figures from 2018 reveal that 2.23billion people around the world use Facebook at least once a month.
That’s up from 1billion monthly users back in 2012.
Facebook was first launched back in February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a computer programmer turned Harvard drop-out.
The company is now worth £380billion, and owns other popular social apps like WhatsApp and Instagram.
But Facebook has faced significant controversy, with critics blasting the site for helping spread fake news.
Today’s outage is Facebook’s latest gaffe, but almost certainly not its last.
