Social media withdrawal: Filipinos react to Instagram, Facebook outage

Photo: William Iven/Unsplash
Photo: William Iven/Unsplash

Say it ain’t so! Do we have to talk to real people outside our social media comfort bubble now?

Denizens of the Philippines, aka the world’s social media capital, are experiencing firsthand the Facebook and Instagram outages felt in many parts of the world.

The two sites have been down for hours now and both social media platforms acknowledged the outages earlier today on the last social media giant standing — Twitter.

Facebook said in its statement: “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

In a separate tweet, it added: “We’re focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.”

Instagram also issued a similar statement today and said they are also working hard to resolve the problem ASAP.

Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is also experiencing problems.

There are multiple reports from this morning stating that some users can’t access their Facebook account. Other users who can access their accounts who try to post a Facebook status get an error message saying “something went wrong.”

Coconuts Manila tried sending Facebook messages both on desktop and on the mobile app, and it works both ways. However, sending a photo on Facebook messenger (both desktop and mobile app) does not work. An error message appears saying: “The operation could not be completed.”

As of posting time, Instagram doesn’t work on desktop, but it does on the mobile app, although new posts aren’t loading for those who can access the app. Instagram Stories is down, and when trying to post new content on the IG feed, an error message pops up.

Several media sites have cited downdetector.com which shows the live outage of areas where Facebook is down. The website says outages were heaviest in North America and Europe. Parts of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, were also affected by the glitch.

It seems that some social media withdrawal is being experienced by Filipinos as they vented about the outage on Twitter.

Twitter user @CeejayBillones said in a mix of English and Filipino that he wants the social media giants to fix it ASAP. He said: “That is why Facebook x Instagram bugs down since last night. They have to fix this asap!”

@unicachel said she was having an emotional breakdown.

The horror.

@cesshiii said she thought her phone was broken.

No @cesshiii, it’s just a classic case of “it’s not you, it’s me.”

@itseliecarea tweeted: “Facebook and Instagram Down in PH.

[M]e: Great, I can finally review [for a test] in peace

Twitter: [E]xcuse me?”

@Brentytutiii said: “Just think, if [F]acebook and [I]nstagram are gone for good, toxic [people] will go to [T]witter.”

@TechKuya said he even deleted and reinstalled the mobile apps. “So, who else tried uninstalling and re-installing Facebook, Instgram, or Messenger on their phone???”

@AbrahamQuiroz9 posted about his morning experience on the Facebook app.

He said: “7:30 AM PH: Facebook still has not allowed me to go in. Seems like our [local] media here posted about this 5 hours ago. Still, the site hasn’t let me in here in our part. I’ll still update in another hour.”

Have you been experiencing problems on FB or IG? Leave a comment below or tweet us @CoconutsManila.



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