Facebook, Instagram and a number of other social services all mysterious dropped out of action around the same time this morning (approx. 6am UK time) causing widespread panic across the internet.
Many of those whose online social life had been temporarily disrupted for up to an hour took to Twitter (which was thankfully not affected) to vent their upset about the situation and rally in unity while the international crisis was resolved.
As well as denied access to the Facebook app and website, other online apps and services that required a sign-in via the social network were unable to be accessed. These included Tinder, prompting the hashtag #TindernetApocalypse to become a trending topic.
Not only was it the social masses who charged to Twitter to make a statement but also hacking group Lizard Squad, who were behind the Christmas attacks on the PlayStation and Xbox networks, popped up with an ominous tweet reading: “Facebook, Instagram, Tinder, AIM, Hipchat #offline #LizardSquad”. Despite the tweet suggesting they were involved Facebook has countered by saying their outage was not the result of a DDoS attack but an issue they were well aware of which was caused by a change to its configuration systems. Facebook acted quickly to resolve and services are now back to 100%.
For Facebook users this is good news and a lot of us were tucked up in bed enjoying that last bit of sleep while the outage took place so only the insomniacs really noticed.