Facebook employees lose access to internal tools during 6-hour outage

Facebook employees and contractors complained Monday that they were unable to log into their work accounts during the company’s worst service outage since 2008.

The outage, which lasted six hours on Monday, not only prevented the company’s more than 3 billion users from accessing Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp services, but also affected employees’ internal systems, they said. some workers told CNBC.

Specifically, employees said the outage prevented them from accessing the tools they use to track information, such as the number of people using certain services, as well as internal chat functions. The workers requested anonymity because they were discussing internal confidential matters.

The outage was so severe that engineers tasked with helping resolve service issues couldn’t even log in and get involved in fixing the issues, someone familiar with the situation told CNBC.

The outage comes a day after Frances Hague, former product manager of Facebook’s civic integrity team, was revealed to be the whistleblower behind the numerous internal documents cited in the Wall’s “The Facebook Files” series of reports. Street Journal.

An Instagram employee told CNBC that some employees were saying the blackout was the karma of the recent whistleblower ordeal. The employee added that he felt bad for creators or brands that were scheduled to roll out advertising campaigns on Monday.

Workers have to be online every five minutes to see if anything has changed, creating a stressful environment for them, a Facebook contractor told CNBC.

In a text message, a company spokesperson said his email was not working and directed CNBC to a tweet from Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer as the company’s official statement to this subject.

“* Sincere * apologies to all who are currently affected by the outages in Facebook services”, tweeted Schroepfer, who announced his resignation from the company last month. “We are having network issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as quickly as possible. “