WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are in general decline worldwide | Technique

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services are subjected to a general downturn on Monday, affecting several countries, including Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom and France, according to what he confirmed. On the specialized page Downdetector. According to some experts, it could be due to problems with DNS, the Internet’s domain name system. EL PAÍS has contacted Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, but has not yet received an explanation as to the reason for the failure.

In a Twitter message, Andy Stone, Facebook’s head of communications, said: “We understand that some people are having issues accessing our apps and products. We are working to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.”

The problems started shortly after 5 PM PST, around 12 PM in Washington, and completely prevented all three apps from working: information could not be updated, messages could not be sent or received. Downdetector, which records user feedback when the internet platform fails, has collected complaints from at least 45 countries since the fall.

About 16,000 people posted messages about the problems of various services. 43% of WhatsApp users complained of connection problems, 29% of problems sending or receiving messages and 28% of problems with the entire app. In the case of Instagram, 36% of users did not find anything working within the app. 33% complained of server problems and 31% of difficulty loading content.

weak system

On July 22, a failure in the services of US cloud services company Akamai caused outages of companies such as Airbnb, video game platforms such as Playstation Network or Steam, airlines such as Delta Air Lines, and distribution chains such as Costco Wholesale. , and financial services such as American Express, as well as several banks such as BBVA, or media such as EL PAÍS, among others.

Most exciting was the global failure of the content distribution network so quickly that on June 8 thousands of pages were taken down from all over the world. Sites like Amazon, EL PAÍS, New York times, twitch, financial times o Reddit experienced problems and in some cases remained inaccessible to its users for about an hour. The next day, Fastly explained that the client’s innocent act had caused a hidden software bug in a computer program and caused the crash.

These incidents – such as the downfall of Google Services last December – have underscored the weakness of digital communications and the systemic weakness of the network at a time when businesses and users depend on it more than ever. Distance working.

You can follow EL PAÍS TECNOLOGÍA at Facebook social networking site And Twitter Or sign up here to receive semanal . newsletter.