New York (AP) — A six-hour outage on Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp has been a headache for many casual users, but around the world using social media sites to run businesses and communicate with relatives. It was much more serious for millions of people. Fellow parents, teachers or neighbors.
When all three services went dark on Monday, it clearly reminded us of the power and reach of Facebook, which owns photo-sharing and messaging apps.
Around the world, many people were at a loss due to WhatsApp failures. In Brazil, messaging services are by far the most widely used app in the country, installed on 99% of smartphones, according to technical researcher Mobile Time.
WhatsApp has become essential in Brazil for a variety of other tasks such as communicating with friends and family, ordering food, and more. Offices, services, and even courts struggled to make reservations, overwhelming telephone lines.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians at home and abroad were suffering from WhatsApp outages.
Many of the country’s more than 11 million people rely on the country to warn each other about gangsters in a particular area and to talk to relatives in the United States about remittances and other important issues. Haitian immigrants traveling to the United States rely on the United States to find each other and share important information such as safe sleeping areas.
Nergie Mireille, a 35-year-old unemployed woman who relies on money sent by her relatives abroad, said she stopped by a repair shop in the capital of Port-au-Prince because she thought her phone was out of order.
“I was waiting for my cousin to confirm the transfer,” she said. “I was very frustrated.”
“I couldn’t hear from my love,” 28-year-old Wilken’s Burgundy complained about his partner in the neighboring Dominican Republic buying goods to bring back to Haiti. rice field. He said he was worried about her safety because of the violence in their hometown.
“Everyone is worried about anxiety,” he said.
In Syria, a rebel group whose telecommunications infrastructure has collapsed due to the war, residents and rescue workers rely primarily on Internet communications.
Turkey-based Syrian doctor Naser Al Muhawish, who monitors coronavirus cases in Syrian rebel-controlled areas, said WhatsApp is the main use of WhatsApp for more than 500 workers in the field. It was said that it was a good means of communication.
They switched to Skype, but WhatsApp works better if Internet services are unstable, he said. If an emergency such as a bombardment occurred and it was necessary to warn field workers, a major problem could have occurred, he said.
“Fortunately, this didn’t happen during yesterday’s outage,” he said.
However, hospitals treating COVID-19 patients in the area panicked. They have no fixed location and have lost contact with oxygen suppliers, which are usually reached via WhatsApp. Dr. Faddy Hakim of the Syrian American Medical Society said a hospital sent staff to look for oxygen at about 20 facilities.
In Lima, Peru, a breakdown complicated the work of dental technician Mary Messiah. Like most Peruvian healthcare professionals, she uses WhatsApp for a variety of tasks, including scheduling appointments and ordering crowns.
“Sometimes doctors are working on patients and I need to contact a technician for work,” she said. “Do I need to call away? That stumbles us. We are very accustomed to this tool.”
“People felt they were separated from the world,” said a South African-based internet infrastructure company, as millions of Africans use WhatsApp for all their voice calls. Mark Tinka of Uganda, head of engineering at SEACOM, said.
Many Africans also use WhatsApp to connect with relatives in other countries. Tinka’s stepdaughter lives in Cordwell, Idaho, and lost her father on Sunday, but was unable to talk to her family to return to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to arrange a funeral trip.
“It’s amazing that most people don’t understand the impact of three or four content companies on the usefulness of the Internet,” says Tinka.
Facebook said the outage was due to an internal error related to the “configuration change,” but didn’t provide details.
The power outage occurred during the Facebook crisis accused by whistleblowers of “60 Minutes.” On Capitol Hill Benefiting from hatred and division, suppressing studies showing that Instagram contributes to young women’s body image problems, eating disorders, and suicide ideas.
For small businesses, the outage meant a loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars in revenue.
Sarah Murdoch runs Adventures with Sarah, a small Seattle-based travel agency that uses Facebook Live videos to promote their tours. She estimated that the breakdown would cost thousands of dollars to book.
“I’ve tried other platforms because I’m wary of Facebook, but nothing is so powerful for the type of content I create,” Murdoch said. Regarding her loss, “Maybe only a few, but we’re painfully small.”
Heather Rader operates How Charming Photography in Lynton, Indiana. She takes pictures for schools and sports teams and makes garden signs with those pictures. She has her own website, but said her parents and other customers are trying to reach her primarily through social media.
She said she might have lost three or four photo appointments for her client’s $ 200.
“Many people have a specific window only when they can order, book, etc.,” she said. “If they can’t get a direct answer, they go to someone else.”
Tarita Carnduff of Alberta, Canada, said she was in contact with other parents almost every day on Facebook and realized how important that support was due to the power outage.
“As a parent with children with special needs, it’s the only place I’ve found others in a similar position,” she said. “There are many of us who would be lost without it.”
But for others, the breakdown concludes that they need less Facebook for their lives.
Ann Vidra said she realized she was spending her leisure time scrolling and commenting on posts she didn’t agree with. She removed the Facebook app on Tuesday.
“I didn’t want it to come back,” said Vidra, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee and works as a narrator. “I realized how much of my time was wasted,” she added.
Beirut’s Associated Press reporter Sarah El Deve. Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Diane Giantet in Rio de Janeiro. Débora Álvares in Brasilia, Brazil. Joseph Pisani and Talia Bell from New York. Frank Bajak of Boston contributed to this report.
Copyright 2021 AP communication. all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.
The outage highlights how important Facebook has become globally | National News
Source link The outage highlights how important Facebook has become globally | National News
The post The outage highlights how important Facebook has become globally | National News appeared first on Illinois News Today.
No comments:
Post a Comment