publive-image

Meta's Meltdown: The True Cost of the Major Outage Unveiled

A massive outage plunged social networking giant Meta’s forums into darkness, affecting billions of users worldwide on Tuesday (March 5). Meta-owned Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp went out of business, causing extensive and frustrated communication among users around the world. According to reports, it took several hours for services to be fully restored. The shutdown has not only severely damaged Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta among users but also financially, with experts highlighting several losses for the company.

Meta, down 1.5 percent on news of a strike affecting shares of 3.98 billion global social media users, media reported a staggering 18 billion, which translates to about $14 billion. Notably, news of impending issues was reported around 10 am ET (8:30 pm IST), with a 1.5 percent fall in Meta share price. Since then, however, the decline has worsened, with shares falling even more than previous day.

A statement read "resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

"Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience," Meta said spokesman Andy Stone commented in a tweet on X, the former.

All meta-owned social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, experienced a major outage reminiscent of those faced in 2021, causing a seven-hour outage but unlike the previous incident, this time it was fixed within two hours, according to reports. DailyMail.com quoted a source within Facebook as saying that their internal processes were affected during the outage, with the Meta service dashboard showing "major disruptions" to services.

To recall, Instagram and Facebook suffered massive service outages on Tuesday evening (IST), leaving users across the country unable to log in. They expressed their frustration through memes even Elon Musk intervened, mocking the meta.

Reports from Downdetector, which monitors the interference service, indicate that the outage began at around 8:33 pm local time in India. There have now been more than 19,290 reports of outages from across the country.

Conclusion: The unveiling of the vast unleashed costs of the meta economy is a poignant reminder of the inherent weakness of the digital infrastructure underpinning modern society. As stakeholders grapple with what will happen, this process of heightened vigilance, robust risk management, and online forums to combat unexpected crises.