Today for approximately 2.5 hours Facebook was down. The problem arose with a configuration value that caused a feedback loop. The only way to correct the problem was to turn off the site and allow databases to recover. Users rushed to Twitter where #facebookdown had thousands of tweets ranging from inquiries as to how widespread the outage was and suggestions on how to pass the time while waiting, to memes expressing boredom. stress, and anxiety over the inconvenience. The site is back up and running, with the troublesome configuration system now turned off.
This is a photograph of my computer screen with the Facebook announcement while it was down. (My backdrop is a photo by Ben Blennerhassett that he posted on Unsplash for free use.)
Stephomy challenged me to be a news photographer this week and photograph an event newspaper style. She also suggested that for fun I might write a little news blurb under the picture. I was thrilled when Facebook went down today!
