Facebook.com Is for Sale as Worldwide Outage, Whistleblower, and Massive User Data Breach Collide in Perfect Storm

Facebook.com Is for Sale as Worldwide Outage, Whistleblower, and Massive User Data Breach Collide in Perfect Storm

Update: Facebook is back up. They are playing coy, saying it was a network error. Mainstream media is running cover saying there is nothing to indicate hacking or internal sabotage. It all stinks and we’ll continue to investigate.

Original Post:

Facebook is down, and not in a minor way. The Big Tech mammoth is down worldwide in a way in which they will not be able to easily recover as the DNS A and AAA records have been deleted. Technically speaking, facebook.com is now for sale.

They’re not alone. Instagram, WhatsApp, and others have also been affected in the same way. It’s clearly a coordinated attack on a massive scale, though it’s unclear how it was pulled off. We’re not talking about a simple DDoS attack. This is catastrophic and would have required high-level access to certain protocols that one cannot get from the outside.

Zero Hedge reported that the timing is conspicuous:

Downdector reports that Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger are experiencing issues and /or outages worldwide. The outage comes just before a Facebook whistleblower is set to testify before Congress on Tuesday. 

Users began to report issues with the social media platform around 1120 ET.

Facebook users report the website won’t load with an error message that reads: “Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on it and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we can.”

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged on Twitter that “some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products.”

The timing of the widespread outages comes as a Facebook whistleblower will be testifying before Congress on Tuesday. The whistleblower appeared on “60 Minutes” Sunday, detailing the tech company’s mission to put profit before doing “what was good for the public,” including clamping down on hate speech. Shares of the tech company slid 6% by early afternoon, tumbling not just on the whistleblower but also the global outage. 

But this isn’t just an outage for Facebook. Users have been affected as well. The private information of 1.5 billion users has already been sold on hacker forums, though the breach appears to be unrelated to today’s outage.

On top of all of that, they’re having difficulty getting into their own buildings because their ID badges have been disabled.

According to The Epoch Times, this outage is universal and comes on the tail of the whistleblower’s complaint making global governments ask questions:

The outage on Oct. 4 comes as two members of the European Parliament called for an investigation into allegations by a whistleblower that Facebook prioritized profits above the public good.

The whistleblower, Frances Haugen, who had worked as a product manager on the civic misinformation team at Facebook, shared internal documents with newspapers and attorneys general from several U.S. states. Haugen will testify in front of the Senate on Oct. 6.

“The Facebook Files—and the revelations that the whistleblower has presented to us—underscores just how important it is that we do not let the large tech companies regulate themselves,” said Danish lawmaker Christel Schaldemose.

“The documents finally put all the facts on the table to allow us to adopt a stronger Digital Services Act,” Alexandra Geese, a German lawmaker at the European Parliament, said. “We need to regulate the whole system and the business model that favors disinformation and violence over factual content—and enables its rapid dissemination,” she said.

A Facebook spokesperson issued a response to the claims, saying the firm has to make “difficult decisions.”

“Every day, we make difficult decisions on where to draw lines between free expression and harmful speech, privacy, security, and other issues,” the spokesperson said. “But we should not be making these decisions on our own. … We’ve been advocating for updated regulations where democratic governments set industry standards to which we can all adhere.”

As much as I oppose criminal activity of any kind, I must admit I’m not heartbroken by this. Fascistbook has made many enemies over the years, and I count myself as one of them.

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