Users are complaining about problems with their internet providers – but they are probably the result of the ongoing blackout at Facebook.
The blackout has meant that not only Facebook but the other services it owns – Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and even Oculus and Workplace – have all been knocked offline.
Amid that, reports of problems at internet and phone companies began to surge. Tracking website Down Detector saw quickly rising reports of issues at T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T in the US, and at Virgin Media, BT, Vodafone, Sky and O2 in the UK.
Some news outlets rushed to report the stories as if they were another outage that had arrived at the same time as Facebook. But it is probably not a coincidence.
In fact, what is probably happening is that the outage has taken down the only things that a lot of people use on the internet, and to keep in touch. In turn, it looks like the internet is broken – but it doesn’t seem to be, at least in any widespread way.
The wide array of Facebook’s apps can cover just about anything people might do online, from messaging on WhatsApp to playing games in virtual reality through Oculus. As a result, an outage at Facebook can look like a problem with the whole internet, especially since it is not immediately obvious that they are all run by the same company, let alone reliant on the same infrastructure.