WATCH: Did THIS interview lead

Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen

WATCH: Did THIS interview lead to the Facebook, Whatsapp outage?

All of Facebook’s platforms went offline just a day after a former employee made shocking revelations

WATCH: Did THIS interview lead

Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen

The world woke up to Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram back online after all platforms, which are owned by Facebook, experienced an outage on Monday evening, 4 October 2021.

The three apps, which are all owned by Facebook, and run on shared infrastructure – could not be accessed over the web or via smartphone applications and stopped working just before 18:00.

The social media giant subsequently assured users it was working on resolving the problem. Facebook and Instagram began working for users again at around midnight, while Whatsapp remained still down before eventually coming back online.

WATCH: Facebook whistle-blower speaks out

This outage came just a day after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen did an explosive interview with 60 Minutes – in which she revealed that the company is aware of how its platforms are used to spread hate, violence and misinformation, and that facebook has tried to hide that evidence.

Haugen is a data scientist with a degree in computer engineering and a Harvard master’s degree in business. She has worked for companies including Google and Pinterest.

“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” Haugen said on the current affairs programme.

Haugen copied thousands of internal research which would prove that the social media company is lying to the world about taking on negative content and removing off its platforms.

“When we live in an information environment that is full of angry, hateful, polarizing content it erodes our civic trust, it erodes our faith in each other, it erodes our ability to want to care for each other, the version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world”

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen