The Facebook’s crash and yet another comeback of the Twitter
On Monday, October 4th, at 5 pm, Central European Time, access to the largest global social media – Facebook and its applications – Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp was disabled. In shock were left users around the world, which lasted for around six hours. They turned to Twitter as the main source of information, with their attention focused on an additional scandal that hit Mark Zuckerberg’s company almost simultaneously.
Namely, the „network crash“ happened the day before former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was set to testify before the US Senate subcommittee and present a series of accusations accompanied by hundreds of documents indicating the unethical behavior of Facebook. Facebook has publicly blamed the incorrect network configuration change for the huge outage.
Social Justice – a trend of the 21st century
The politics of Facebook’s business and the impact it has on democracy has been under the magnifying glass ever since 2016 and the Cambridge Analytica affair of many who believe that one corporation should not have such tremendous power and influence in society. To make matters worse, in the past years, the silence around (and in) Facebook has never been louder.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen has secretly sent documents to the Wall Street Journal over the past weeks suggesting that Facebook knowingly puts the company’s well-being and profits above the common good. Also, she has shaken the company by Sunday’s guest appearance on the CBS show 60 Minutes.
Social Network or Social Monopoly?
Topics that have opened up and concerned the public are related to data access and the way Facebook processes data. Also, there is a monopoly that Facebook got with taking over Instagram and WhatsApp.
US Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has publicly expressed concern, arguing that the Facebook crash shows the danger of its monopoly. The US Federal Trade Commission, which initially approved the acquisitions, said they should be canceled, and Facebook should be forced to order their sale.
The rise of Twitter
And while the first working day of this week couldn’t have been worse for the founder of Facebook, whose company reportedly lost $ 40 billion in market value – we believe another man was quite happy. Yes, it’s related to Twitter and its owner Jack Dorsey.
His platform enjoyed full attention during the fateful six hours, which they took advantage of with a suitable tweet:
It remains to be seen who will benefit from the whole situation in the long run, and we will take a closer look at Twitter in one of our next blog posts.
And be always updated with news from Dialog.
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