Facebook Outage; Did we really lose a part of our life for 5 hours?

5

October

2021

5/5 (1)

On the 4th of October of 2021 the world got shocked by a global outage of one of the most famous social media platforms in the world, Facebook. Facebook has recorded 2.8 billion monthly active users around the world. Its power is such nowadays that some countries, such as North Korea and China, have banned its use to their residents. However, Facebook is not just a simple social media platform that operates on its own. Facebook has acquired in the past other famous social media or networking apps, such as Instagram and Whatsapp, which have a total amount of 1.386 billion and 1.6 billion users respectively. Facebook has not only acquired platforms though, but it has also managed to develop platforms on its own such as Messenger and Oculus, which have become popular worldwide.

During the afternoon of the 4th of October of 2021 (CET), Facebook began displaying some error messages to users in some parts of the world. That could also be perceived as a normal degradation since it has happened in the past again but in a matter of minutes Facebook would look into it and the problem would be totally restored in a relevantly small amount of time.What happened the evening mentioned above though can be considered extremely odd since it seemed that Facebook, and its family of apps, such as Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger and Oculus, stopped working for good for more than 5 hours. For some users, who may not use Facebook extensively, an outage for some hours may not seem like a big deal, but for some others or even for some businesses that heavily depend their work on such platforms it may have caused severe damage. What is interesting to see is what could cause such an outage and what are the implications of this when it happens to one of the biggest companies in the world.

After the operation of the apps was restored and everything was back to normal, Facebook apologized publicly about the big technical problem and its implications that had to several users and businesses. The company also admitted that the cause of such an outage were defects due to changes that happened to its internet infrastructure, which causes data to flow among its data centers. The defects caused a stop in communications between the data centers, thus resulting in a “halt of services”, as Facebook stated. The problem was so big that even internal systems crashed and stopped working, resulting in employees of the company having trouble even communicating with other colleagues in order to solve the problem more efficiently. Eventually, workers did not even have access to the server areas due to security systems not working.

A big portion of people use Facebook and all of their family apps, as the main tools to communicate with their friends or family, entertain themselves or get updated for news around the world. In some countries, using Facebook has become equivalent to using the Internet. Facebook is also used by a lot of people as the only way to log-in to different apps that they use daily. All of these capabilities were lost for an amount of time.

Apart from people using it for recreational purposes though, apps such as Facebook or Instagram have been the key operating point for a lot of businesses. Many companies use these platforms in order to reach their customers and sell their products. Other companies, such as the advertising ones, rely their core processes on offering advertisements only through social media. Smaller companies also usually take orders online through social media. Even professions that may not sound as usual as others, such as professional gamers and streamers use the platforms as main source for their revenue and at that time they were not able to do anything. As it is normal, businesses recorded medium to massive losses while all the aforementioned apps were down and out of operation.

In conclusion, an approximate outage of 5 hours led to revealing the huge impacts that there might be when people rely extensively on certain apps. People that have as a habit to scroll through the apps or businesses that operate mainly through the same apps may end up having huge implications if a bigger outage occurs. Is it time for people to reconsider if they should rely their everyday lives or work on such platforms and rethink if there are other ways to operate more efficiently in the future? I would appreciate it if you let me know what your views on this topic are in the comments section!

References

Nytimes.com. 2021. Gone in Minutes, Out for Hours: Outage Shakes Facebook. [online] Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/technology/facebook-down.html> [Accessed 5 October 2021].

Research, C., 2021. Facebook Fast Facts. [online] CNN. Available at: <https://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/11/world/facebook-fast-facts/index.html> [Accessed 5 October 2021].

Backlinko. 2021. How Many People Use Instagram? 95+ User Statistics (2021). [online] Available at: <https://backlinko.com/instagram-users> [Accessed 5 October 2021].

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Is the launch of a kid’s version of Instagram a good idea?

29

September

2021

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Every parent has to decide from what age they allow their children to create profiles on social media. This often leads to long discussions between parents since there is not a clear guideline to when it would be appropriate to expose their children to social media. 

Especially in a pandemic, children often spend a large part of their day unsupervised on social media. During the that time they are tracked, exposed to toxic content and their mental health might be impacted. Especially the mental health aspect has been topic of recent debate. Looking at Instagram for example, the app is designed to show perfect pictures. This regularly leads to lowering of teen girl’s self-esteem and in bad cases even mental health problems. 

Facebook has now claimed to try to tackle these issues by creating a kid’s version of Instagram. In short, the app would be designed for kids under 13 and incorporate more feedback from parents and policymakers, which according to Facebook would improve the safeguarding of children on Instagram. Facebook claims that creating a digital space where parents are more able to monitor their children behaviour is more effective than banning then from social media altogether.

Even though everyone would agree that safeguarding children more online is a good thing, the idea of a kid’s version of Instagram has received quite some criticism saying it is profit driven instead of a genuine regard for children wellbeing.

Parents and policymakers claim that young children would be more triggered to join a social media platform which are designed to be addictive. Next to that, they fear that their children would be tracked more specifically and even though not all the data can be used now, it will be stored for the future.  

What do you think, is a kid’s Instagram a good idea or is another solution more suitable?

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Is Instagram the new beauty standard?

28

September

2019

5/5 (3) Do you also catch yourself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram whenever you have got some time to spare? Believe me, you are not alone. But have you ever wondered how all these images of other people’s bodies may affect how you view your own body? No matter whether these pictures are your friend’s holiday picture, influencers’ gym selfie, or a celebrity’s beach photoshoot. You may think by yourself: “I wish I looked like her”.

Nowadays, the usage of social media is gradually growing and has already infiltrated into our daily lives. Instagram creates the illusion of perfection which is perceived by many as the beauty standards. In contrary to these beauty standards, our normal non-perfect lives seem somehow abnormal. As a result, some people may resort to drastic measures, or even eating disorders as their dissatisfaction with their body grows to try to achieve these unattainable goals as “beauty standards” (Dakanalis et al. 2014).

As we are scrolling through Instagram or posting pictures of ourselves, negative thoughts about our own body may arise (Holland & Tiggermann, 2016). A harsh comment by someone may result in dissatisfaction with our own body as many of us tend to interpret our social standing through comments or social comparison (Toma et al. 2008). A nice example is a video I encountered a few years ago by Cassey Ho, a social media fitness entrepreneur. Please watch the video below.

 

This video reflected how the comments by others on social media may affect how we feel about our own body. It made me start wondering how much of what we see are real on Instagram. Nowadays, there are numerous apps for altering your face and body as well as beauty filters to cover your imperfections (Fallon, 2014). Many of the pictures we see online are altered to enhance their features before it goes online. Even if I do not want to admit it, I will often find myself comparing to these influencers as well. I believe many followers of these Insta-celebrities do as well and what these followers think, actually becomes the new beauty standard.

This is just how trends work; they are going in and out like a fast fashion. Back in the day, flat chest and slim waist were in and now curvy body, thick lips and big booty are in. What is next? What do you think about the current beauty standard that is defined by altered pictures as the result of the current technology? Are you able to catch up with the current trend or will you rather alter yourself just to fit in? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Sources:

Dakanalis, A., Clerici, M., Caslini, M., Favagrossa, L., Prunas, A., Volpato, C., & Zanetti, M. A. (2014). Internalization of sociocultural standards of beauty and disordered eating behaviours: the role of body surveillance, shame and social anxiety. Journal of Psychopathology20, 33-37.

Ho, C. (2015) The “Perfect” Body [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsL7W-GHhJA

Holland, G., & Tiggemann, M. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of the use of social networking sites on body image and disordered eating outcomes. Body image17, 100-110.

Fallon, K. (2014). Streams of the self: The Instagram feed as narrative autobiography. In Proceedings of the interactive narratives, new media & social engagement international conference (Vol. 101, pp. 54-60).

Toma, C. L., Hancock, J. T., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Separating fact from fiction: An examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin34(8), 1023-1036.

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Instagram to put an end to bullying

15

October

2018

5/5 (1) Social media platforms bring us closer and bridge geographical differences, but sometimes they can be pretty dark places. Cyber-bullying is an important and alarming phenomenon that is on the rise as social platforms become more and more popular among teens.

For us, millennials Facebook might have been the go-to platform, but today’s generation Z have switched to Instagram. According to recent studies about 70% of US teens are using the platform daily. There are several cyber-bullying practices that have spread on the platform. In order to combat the cruel practices about a year ago Instagram introduced a filtering mechanism for offensive comments. Nowadays not only comments but among others, finstas aka fake instagrams have been used to post embarrassing or harassing pictures of others. On the 9th of October, the new head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri announced that they are expanding Instagram’s  filtering tool to photos, captions and comments on live videos. The AI enhanced tool filters out offensive or potentially bullying images and texts and sends it to Instagram’s moderators, who then investigate the cases.

Of course, the practice works on creating a safer online environment, but a potential risk lies in false positives. What do these mean for our generation’s meme factories or harmless banter among friends? In order to account for these errors, the personal relationship between the account owners is also factored in the algorithm, as well as previous interactions. This could lead to another potential backlash on the practice: privacy concern?

Instagram has started to roll out the new tool in honour of National Bullying Prevention Month in the US and the Anti-Bullying Week in the UK, during the month of October. Although it is definitely no silver bullet, hopefully Instagram’s efforts to fight cyber-bullying will result in social media being a bit safer and kinder place and it will not restrain free content creation and raise privacy concerns among users.

 

Carey-Simos, G. (2018). Instagram Introduces New Tools To Limit Bullying On Instagram • Featured, Instagram • WeRSM – We are Social Media. [online] WeRSM – We are Social Media. Available at: https://wersm.com/instagram-introduces-new-tools-to-limit-bullying-on-instagram/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Foster, A. (2018). The disturbing new cyber-bullying trend. [online] NewsComAu. Available at: https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/the-disturbing-new-cyberbullying-trend-gaining-popularity-with-students/news-story/b03a9e27ef8ef00d4d9195867fc2adfd [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Lorenz, T. (2018). Teens Are Being Bullied ‘Constantly’ on Instagram. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/teens-face-relentless-bullying-instagram/572164/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Mosseri, A. (2018). New Tools to Limit Bullying and Spread Kindness on Instagram. [online] Instagram. Available at: https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/10/09/new-tools-to-limit-bullying-and-spread-kindness-on-instagram/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Thompson, N. (2018). Instagram Launches An AI System to Blast Away Nasty Comments. [online] WIRED. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/instagram-launches-ai-system-to-blast-nasty-comments/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Vincent, J. (2018). Instagram is using AI to detect bullying in photos and captions. [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/9/17954658/instagram-ai-machine-learning-detect-filter-bullying-comments-captions-photos [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

 

 

 

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Happy birthday, Instagram!

6

October

2018

No ratings yet. Happy birthday, Instagram! Today, it is Instagram’s eighth birthday. In the past eight years, many has changed about the app. It has transformed itself to become one of the biggest, most popular social media platforms in the world. What has made the app so significantly big?

On the 6thof October 2010, Instagram was launched, solely being available in the App Store yet. One and a half year later, it became available for Android as well. Its initial purpose was allowing users to share pictures with family and friends, and its competitive edge was the ability to professionally adjust photos by giving filters and frames. (Otto, 2018)

Ever since, Instagram has grown significantly, due to its network effects. Being a platform, Instagram gained great value by its community, i.e. the users of the app. The positive same-sided network effects came at play when an increased number of users attracted an ever-growing number of users. When one did not have Instagram yet, he or she would become very curious what kind of pictures, and later on also videos, users of Instagram shared. Soon, they would start using the app as well.

Currently, Instagram has become a platform where ‘normal’ people can become famous and a role model for many; they become so-called ‘influencers’ and have numerous followers. However, this had led to much critique as well: the lives of influencers seem ever-perfect. They seem to travel nonstop, are always very good-looking, are extremely fashionable, and experience many cool events. One may wonder how ‘true’ this depiction of reality is. Despite their many followers, many users of Instagram may also become annoyed because of the ‘overload’ of Instagram influencers. This, in turn, may lead to negative same-sided network effects: users may stop using the app, because they feel annoyed by those influencers.

What do you think? May the overload of Instagram influencers lead to negative same-sided network effects? Or do you believe the option to ‘unfollow’ those influencers will diminish the negative same-sided network effects sufficiently?

References:

Otto, R., 2018. Acht jaar Instagram: ‘Normale mensen kunnen rolmodellen worden. Nu.nl. Retrieved from: https://www.nu.nl/apps/5498408/acht-jaar-instagram-normale-mensen-kunnen-rolmodellen-worden.html

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Addiction on Instagram: When likers become enablers

6

October

2016

No ratings yet. You see them all over Instagram: happy young #fitgirls. They have a large follower base and over 100 likes on average on each photo they post. In the summer of 2016 another one of these girls started posting on Instagram under the name Louise Delage. Louise is a 25 years old Parisienne. She posts photos of her jet set life: fancy holidays, parties and food. She seems like a happy and healthy girl enjoying her life without any worries. She has more than 12K followers and over 50K likes.

But who is this girl? How did she get so popular in such a short amount of time? The truth behind this account is campaign from a French organisation Addict Aide: Like my addiction. The campaign was launched to raise awareness of alcohol addiction among young people. Together with an agency Addict Aide created Louise. They did research on how to create a popular profile on Instagram, and defined a strategy for the account in terms of hashtags, time of posting and content.

Thousands of people started liking Louise. Her photos had one thing in common: she is having an alcoholic drink on almost every photo. There were a few people who noticed this, and the organisation had hoped a lot of people would. However, the majority of Instagrammers did not see it. They saw a happy young girl and by liking her photos they were actually liking her alcohol addiction without even knowing it. The key message of the campaign is that every one knows a Louise Delage. It can be very hard to spot the addiction of someone very close to you. Moreover, with social media these days people can cover up a lot of things. The people who look overly happy online are often very unhappy in real life.

The clever thing about this campaign is that when they revealed the truth about Louise, she became even more popular. The story went viral in France and was covered in a lot of media. The French version of the video has been viewed over 200.000 times.

In my opinion, Addict Aide has done an amazing job with this campaign. They used the power of social media and its network effects to raise awareness among thousands of people without any media budget. I have not seen the Instagram account before they revealed the truth. Now it is obvious because you know it is there, but I wonder if I would have noticed before I knew the truth.

Sources:
http://www.addictaide.fr/actualite/like-my-addiction-notre-nouvelle-campagne-pour-sensibiliser-aux-consommations-excessives-dalcool/
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/who-louise-delage-troubling-truth-behind-overnight-instagram-success-173792
http://creativity-online.com/work/addict-aide-like-my-addiction/49179

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The battle of Image Messaging.

6

October

2016

3.5/5 (2) In august, Instagram released its Stories feature, allowing its users to take, edit and post photos or videos that disappear in 24 hours. This caused a wide spread debate considering the fact that Instagram didn’t hide Stories was copied from Snapchat. In fact, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom even admitted that the Stories where a direct imitation by saying that Snapchat deserves all the credit.

However, next to the obvious similarities, the image massaging platforms also have a lot of differences. Instagram’s Stories for instance have a much wider reach. Where Snapchat is the ‘new guy’, Instagram has double the users as Snapchat, users who come to life because of these Stories. Because you already have your followers on Instagram, it’s easier to get your Stories to a larger crowd. As an example, Nike generated 800.000 views in 24 hours for an Instagram Story, posted on the first day the feature was available. The most popular post of Nike on Snapchat got only 66.000 views.

Where Stories is better at some areas, Snapchat beats it at others. Snapchat is, apart from the basic Instagram Stories drawings and colour filters, big on its geofilters, face-mapping filters and motion filters. Snapchat also has a much better approach for advertising. Where Instagram doesn’t have any non-aggressive space for companies to advertise trough Stories, Snapchat created a whole separate page with plenty of space for companies to advertise.

 

Joining the game

WhatsApp also noticed that the photo editing feature in social media is getting more and more important. Therefor they released a function that allows users to draw on their photos and videos.  They also added the option to put stickers on top of your photo, again just like snapchat. However this could possibly be a distraction for a bigger issue, since WhatsApp received a lot of criticism when it changed its privacy policy in order to share user’s phone numbers and data with Facebook.

 

Who do you think is going to win the game?

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