Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa
Millions of social media users around the world were yesterday reminded of the detriment of technology monopolies, after social media platforms WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram were hit by an outage.
All of the above platforms are owned by tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
The outage which began at around 5pm on October 4 was only resolved on October 5 at just after midnight.
Users trying to access Facebook were getting an error message which read; “Something went wrong. We’re working on it and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we can.”
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone, posted on microblogging site Twitter saying, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products.”
Others were getting a DNS error message.
DNS or Domain Name System in full is a hierarchical and decentralized naming system for computers, services, or other resources connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities.
The outage came with consequences as reports say Zuckerberg’s wealth plunged by $7billion in hours, as Facebook shares reacted to the global outage.
It has been a long week at Facebook, as whistle-blower Frances Haugen leaked a trove of documents to authorities.
The documents allege that the social media giant knew its products were fueling political hate and polarisation and harming children, especially young girls’ mental health.
The overload and ethics issues facing these so-called popular social networks, has brought back to the fore calls for Africans to have their own social media platforms they can control.
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