As a society, we have been socially groomed to depend on our socials (irony intended).
They are a way to showcase our lives online via Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram,
Whatsapp, Tumblr, etc., in whatever way we choose to. Many great opportunities such as
meeting the love of your life, having a penpal from across the world, speaking with distant
family members and friends, and even getting a job can come from connecting and
communicating on our socials. Socials are also just a great way to escape reality and enjoy funny
videos of dogs, see what your favorite celebrities are up to, and to constantly be reminded that
Vine and Tik Tok used to rule the world.

Here’s What Happened

So, what happens when three of the most frequently used social media platforms crash at
the same time? Complete and utter chaos.

On July 3rd, 2019, Facebook’s triad (Instagram, Facebook, and Whatsapp) went down at
5a.m. PST. The inability to view, like, or post was enough cause for aggravation, and with
Facebook and Instagram not working, all that was left was to turn to Twitter and set off a tirade
of hashtags. The most popular included, “#facebookdown #facebookoutage #instagramdown
#Happy4th”, along with numerous memes of Mark Zuckerberg, Kylie Jenner crying, and Katy
Perry singing her hit single “Firework”. Although we have become accustomed to making jokes
out of our socials glitching every now and then, a system-wide outage across three major social
platforms is a little strange to say the least.

Most of the time when a network glitches, it is quickly fixed and feels like it never
happened. It is a very rare occurrence that three huge socials go down. One can’t help but to
point out the elephant in the room in this circumstance, and that is that something must have
happened at Facebook headquarters. Once the platforms came back up Facebook and Instagram
posted an apology note on Twitter that, basically, said the same thing, “Earlier today, some
people and businesses experienced trouble uploading or sending images, videos, and other files
on our apps and platforms. The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100% for
everyone. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

Here’s Why It Matters

While the public does not, usually, care when a social platform goes down, this outage
felt different and drew a lot of news coverage. Mark Zuckerberg remains on the hotseat for
allowing third party access and brokering of user data, and a sudden, widespread crash is enough
to not just cause commotion, but to leave users wondering why Facebook would leave its
networks exposed to any kind of vulnerability that has the power to knock out three social
networks at once . It’s one thing to mess with someone’s data and information, but it is another
to mess with someone’s Instagram. Jokes aside, it’s easy to point out that we never actually get
an explanation when something like this happens, and my only question is “Why?”. Why is
informing their users something that big social media platforms shy away from?
The subject on whether this was just a simple crash or if it suggests a more serious
vulnerability at Facebook remains and will likely continue to be a mystery. The company that
wants us to trust them with our banking information and use its proposed “Libra”
crypto-currency doesn’t exactly inspire trust when it gives user data to third parties, and can’t
even provide a simple explanation when all three of its platforms go down. At least for now, we
can enjoy our memes and celebrity updates, but always remember that the “Big 3” went down on
the 3rd. #prophetic

 Sierra Joan

@Sierra Swanson

@sierrajoan

@sierrajoan_

@sierrajoan_