Service outage
Early October, 2021. In the news… only one thing, really. For reasons unknown, Facebook and the satellite services of Instagram and WhatsApp are MIA. Don’t blame your local ISP; this time we’re global. Millions and millions of people, hitting refresh and weeping. Nothing. No news. Your library of memes, unreachable. Why, things are so bad that the actual FB employees are wandering aimlessly. Some are locked out of their office building, and others why go inside earlier today can’t go from room to room. Prisoners. From the official channels, a huge shoulder shrug.
Twitter is right there, laughing in their sleeves.
So, how serious is this? Well, for those who actually use Messenger, you can’t message anyone. In my case, the family is now “really” far away. I’m sure things will be restored, but at what cost? Can the world handle imposed silence?
I may have to dust off my amateur radio gear, if the strain from this reaches fever levels.
Having worked in the shadowy corridors of networked services, this was an eventuality. I mean, things fall apart. Rarely at a worldwide level, but that’s life. I can imagine the phones, on a million help desks, ringing. And the person tasked to answer just hiding in the nearest washroom, waiting for things to get fixed. I mean, if a printer jam can bring a small office to its proverbial knees, imagine the strain of FB, lost. Even the people in the boss tower get affected by this. I am so glad to be out of the loop. The imposed silence (my media stream) is like a change in the weather.
