# Okay, seriously, WTF is up with Facebook and family being down? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 4, 2021, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891 "2021-10-04T21:01:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/1 "2021-10-04T21:01:50Z")
There’s a lot of speculation running rampant: it’s an error, it’s a hack, it’s a attempt by Facebook to scrub servers and draw attention away in advance of the whistleblower testimony, it’s serious, it’s not serious… Anyone have anything solid in terms of knowledge? ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/2 "2021-10-04T21:03:28Z")
I put in a request to merge this one with … > [@Is anyone else having trouble accessing Facebook right now?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-anyone-else-having-trouble-accessing-facebook-right-now/951879/30): > > I noticed it first when some services like the store on my Oculus Quest stopped working. They still seem to be down though the installed apps like Youtube seem to be working fine and can connect to the Internet. Fascinating story. I would not have believed that a company as large as Facebook would experience something like this unless it was some hugely sophisticated cyber-attack. But at least as now the [cause](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/10/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-and-oculus-are-down-heres-what-we-know/) appears to be linked to an update in something called the Border Gateway Patrol. Thi… This one 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/3 "2021-10-04T21:06:09Z")
I did not imagine that this would be worthy of IMHO, nor would I have thought that thread was about anything besides “are you on or not?” from its title. I’ll leave the question up to the mods. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/4 "2021-10-04T21:12:59Z")
It could well be a coincidence that they fall under heavy scrutiny and then they crash. Or it could be nefarious. I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion, but the timing certainly pricks up my ears a little. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/5 "2021-10-04T22:30:34Z")
Trying to give us a little taste what life would be like without the Precious? ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/6 "2021-10-04T22:38:05Z")
It’s probably good for us and hard on the Zuck’s enormous pocketbook. So, it’s good for us, period. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/7 "2021-10-04T23:01:11Z")
Is now up for me. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/8 "2021-10-04T23:14:31Z")
I feel like the hiatus was probably a major boon for public/mental health all around the world. It reminds me of the salutary effects on air pollution that were documented worldwide during the pandemic lockdowns. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/9 "2021-10-04T23:16:13Z")
The funny part is that I have had no cable or internet since Friday afternoon, and just got it back about an hour and a half ago. 😄 ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/10 "2021-10-04T23:31:52Z")
there’s been whisperings of some sort of coordinated attack since things like instacart and other places experienced the same thing Sunday ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/11 "2021-10-04T23:50:00Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Trying to give us a little taste what life would be like without the Precious? Ha! Perfect. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/12 "2021-10-04T23:50:10Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Trying to give us a little taste what life would be like without the Precious? After I spit out my drink… I think this is probably it! ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/13 "2021-10-05T01:30:09Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I’ll leave the question up to the mods. They probably could be merged, but since this one seems to have a slightly different focus I’ll keep them separate for you. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/14 "2021-10-05T01:49:37Z")
The site was all over the news so people were like “lemme check out this Facebook thing” and it crashed the server 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/15 "2021-10-05T03:35:56Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > I feel like the hiatus was probably a major boon for public/mental health all around the world Now if only TikTok can go down for a few hours, humanity night actually have a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/16 "2021-10-05T04:49:00Z")
Can’t vouch for accuracy, but the stoopid little news thing that pops up and annoys me to no end reported Zuck has lost **SIX BILLION ALREADY!!!** So, not all the news is bad. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/17 "2021-10-05T07:44:08Z")
Here’s an excellent technical explanation of what happened: > **[Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the Internet](https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/)** > > Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled "Facebook DNS lookup returning SERVFAIL" because we were worried that something was wrong with our DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. But as we were about to post on our public status page we realized... tl;dr  Someone at Facebook sent updates to a top-level internet routing protocol saying, ‘Just forget about us, our servers don’t exist.’ As to _why_, we don’t know. Some senior Facebook employee must be on the naughty step this morning.   > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > The site was all over the news so people were like “lemme check out this Facebook thing” and it crashed the server It wasn’t the cause, but you’re not too far wrong. [![](https://blog.cloudflare.com/content/images/2021/10/image6-8.png) ](https://blog.cloudflare.com/content/images/2021/10/image6-8.png) Attempts to contact Facebook sites suddenly increased dramatically. ---
**Author:** ![CarolineMills](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carolinemills/32/9092_2.png) [@CarolineMills](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarolineMills)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/18 "2021-10-05T08:34:34Z")
Yes, this news is just all over the place! But I don’t think that’s what everyone should be worried about…there’s a bigger problem with data leaks. How’s it going Zuck? ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/19 "2021-10-06T01:52:20Z")
FB shares were up today on the stock market. We are clueless. ---
**Author:** ![Caldazar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Caldazar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caldazar)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2021, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-seriously-wtf-is-up-with-facebook-and-family-being-down/951891/20 "2021-10-06T02:18:34Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > tl;dr  Someone at Facebook sent updates to a top-level internet routing protocol saying, ‘Just forget about us, our servers don’t exist.’ > > As to _why_, we don’t know. Some senior Facebook employee must be on the naughty step this morning. >   Sr. Network Engineer: “oops!” These types of misconfigurations are not that uncommon; the Internet in aggregate sees a couple of big ones each year, unfortunately.