Facebook owes us an explanation

Yesterday, somewhere during the sixth hour of breakdown of records on Facebook, I was flabbergasted alongside my fellow editors at The edge. We wondered how it was possible for the largest and most influential technology company in the world to experience a one-day break in service and say nothing fundamentally, with the exception of one. brutal and cryptic tweet. Facebook finally stated that the crash was the result of a "server configuration change" – an impenetrable combination of words that translated to "we play ourselves". The company was not attacked, so why not say it early?

The edge, The New York Timesand others tried to get more information from Facebook when they made comments. After Facebook released its statement today, we asked the company to explain in more detail the breakdown, including the actual magnitude of the problem. How many countries has this affected? How many people have been disturbed? Facebook ignored our questions, referring to its generic statement and apologies.

In light of Facebook's long list of wrongdoing, a temporary break in service might not seem serious. It's even a good material for jokes on Facebook. But what if we take Facebook seriously? What if, on an experimental basis, we assume in a charitable way that everything Facebook says about itself is true? Here's a brief list of some of Facebook's beliefs about itself:

• Last week, Facebook's global security chief said Internal business that it is "the essential infrastructure for modern democracy".
• In his manifesto on Facebook as a "global community," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook's infrastructure would be needed to stop terrorism, fight climate change and prevent pandemics.
• In his latest manifesto, Zuckerberg suggests that Facebook's next enhancements will strengthen the privacy of citizens around the world and allow dissidents to stay alive.
• In his pre-IPO letter of 2012, Zuckerberg said: "Facebook was not originally created to be a business. It was built to fulfill a social mission: to make the world more open and connected. He adds, "We do not build services to make money; we make money to build better services. "

It is only a (very) small sample of the huge set of beliefs that Facebook has built around it over the past decade. And if we assume that they are all true – that Facebook is indeed the critical infrastructure for modern democracy – how could it be appropriate for this critical infrastructure to be broken down for so long without offering a significant degree of transparency about what happened? Can a platform that makes the world more open and connected succeed its mission if it is not open to the world that depends on it? No of course not.

The most alarming thing about Facebook's muffled tone when it broke the record is that the company was once known for its legendary obsession with uptime. I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg is furious about the breakdown and his engineers are paying the price right now. But if Facebook can not even be honest and open with us on the most basic and urgent facts about its very existence, how can we trust it? How can we take it seriously?