Social media users rejoice about break from ‘toxic’ platforms during major outage

‘I hope it stays down,’ one person tweeted

People joke about Facebook outage (Getty Images)

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are down, with social media users rejoicing over the brief break from the “toxic” platforms.

On Monday, the apps, which are all owned by Facebook, began to experience problems around 12pm ET, with Facebook issuing a statement to Twitter acknowledging the issues.

“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing Facebook app. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience,” the platform said.

However, for many users, the outage offered an opportunity to joke, on Twitter, about the downsides of the social media platforms.

“Facebook is down, and the world already seems less toxic… [good morning] fam!” one person tweeted.

Another said: “I wish I could take credit for @Facebook being down, but it’s more likely someone hit a button on accident. The world might be less toxic for these quiet moments.”

The outage comes shortly after Facebook denied a report from the Wall Street Journal that alleged the platform has a harmful impact on body image among teenage girls, with Pratiti Raychoudhury, the vice president of head of research at Facebook calling the findings “not accurate”.

The crash also comes after former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, revealed a series of revelations about the social media platform during an appearance on CBS News’ 60 Minutes, with the whistleblower alleging that the company repeatedly prioritised “growth over safety”.

Others expressed feelings of “peace” as a result of the outage, with someone else writing on Twitter: “So much peace with Facebook, IG, and WhatsApp down. Soooo happy to be detached .”

In addition to the mostly positive responses from users to the crash, others took the opportunity to declare Twitter the best platform, with one person writing: “Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook are down. I believe Twitter can save the world.”

“Can we all just agree that Twitter is king of social media?” someone else asked.

While none of the apps offered an explanation for the outage, Instagram urged users to “bear with us,” with a statement from the app reading: “Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we’re on it!

WhatsApp also assured users it is working to correct the issue in a statement shared to Twitter.