Hundreds of millions of people around the world using some of the most popular

social media sites- Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp has been (1)…forced
offline.. in a (2)…major global blackout... It’s one of the longest outages already
lasting several hours, and Facebook’s shared prices has (3)…plummeted.. by
nearly five percent. It’s not known what caused the problems or when they’ll be
fixed. Our (4)…consumer affair correspondent.., Coletta Smith has the full story.

It's a trilogy of companies with one owner; and this afternoon, it was the same
message about them all. Facebook is down; Instagram isn't working and Whatsapp
went down too. The fact that all three companies have been impacted suggest that
it's something (5)…right at the heart…of that social media giant that's gone
horribly wrong.

ALICE ENDERS- Director of Research: “Facebook has servers everywhere ;all

over the world to ensure that the service it delivers is -you know of course- (6)…
optimised.. and is a good service to the users. So the fact that it's global suggests
that it's not a problem with its server system- it could well be a problem at the heart
of the (7)…technological engines… that runs all those servers.”

Many within the tech industry think it's a problem with the (8)…domain name
system.- that's effectively the internet's address book. Something has been wiped at
Facebook; so when you click an app or type the name, users aren't being sent
anywhere.
“ It's been a bit of a nightmare trying to find each other ; we have to go back to
text”
“I'm so glad it's out and I think the world would be a much better place if it doesn't
come back on.”
“ It's been really annoying obviously; i haven't been able to contact my mum
because she lives in India and we're not texting and calling.”

Whatsapp is rapidly replacing texts and regular calling; particularly in the

developing world; as a much cheaper way to communicate. And millions of small
companies here and around the globe depend on Facebook to (9)…conduct their
entire business…. Today's outage is huge in scale but similar events have happened
before. In July, problems with the domain name system meant that AirBNB;
HSBC bank and Playstation were among (10)…a raft of sites.. to go down for
hours. But today, with the (11)…biggest social media players… down, other
platforms like TikTok and Twitter are (12)…seizing…their moment (13)…in the
limelight...- Coletta Smith, BBC news
Let's get more from our North America business Correspondent ,Michelle Fleury
who's in Boston. Michelle ; this outage has gone on for quite a few hours now; it
(14)…well and truly… has broken the internet.
MICHELLE: “Yeah, i mean we think this outage has gone on for what around five
hours at this point. Now look, they happen from time to time; but typically these
problems are fixed very quickly. So an outage this long is highly unusual; and
there are going to be many frustrated people tonight in part because billions of
people use these services; Facebook has nearly 2 billion daily users, Instagram –I
think- has nearly a billion. The damage to the company was reflected in the shared
price which closed down nearly 5 percent. But even at the start of the day, it was
already lower because Facebook has been hit by a series of (15)…downing
reports.. from a (16)…whistleblower.. accusing the company of prioritizing profits
over misinformation and the health and safety of teens. Now that whistleblower
Frances Haugen is due to appear before (17)…lawmakers.. on Tuesday to testify
about Facebook's impact on teens. We've already had (18)…one senator.. compare
Facebook to (19)…the big tobacco.. in the way that they (20)…draw in….
teenagers and cause them harm; so a bad week already for this company.”