Facebook’s outage is a wake-up call for businesses reliant upon it

Phew! Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are back online, so you can tell the world about your trip to the dentist, “like” your friend’s photos from their recent night out, share some funny memes, hawk the latest anti-vaxx conspiracy theories… maybe not in the case of the latter.

I jest, of course. Maybe I shouldn’t. The information made public by whistleblower Frances Haugen makes clear that this is really no laughing matter.

The revelations about the way the company’s algorithms work, the allegations about what it has shared with investors concerning its reach, the distribution of toxic content, the strategies employed to lure wary younger users are all deadly serious issues.

They are being aired before the US Congress, they will be aired before a British Parliamentary committee and other similar bodies elsewhere. So they should be.

Against that backdrop, the failure could scarcely have come at a worse time for Mark Zuckerberg’s company, which (whisper this) now looks ever so slightly vulnerable.

In addition to the many problems Haugen has raised with her cache of documents, the dropout has drawn attention to just how much the world relies upon this one, appallingly powerful business and its services.

Netflix tweeted a funny meme in response to the shutdown featuring its hit South Korean horror-drama Squid Game. It shows a still from one of the murderous games featured in the show, in which one contestant is seen picking up another. The assistant is labelled “Twitter”, the person they are helping bears the legend “everyone”.

It isn’t quite so funny when you think about it. Some will have remembered during Twitter’s moment in the sun that Facebook twice tried to buy its rival out.

The affair certainly raises questions about the weakness of antitrust regulators and their decision to wave through the takeovers of other potential rivals such as Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014). There is a parallel universe in which Twitter was added to their number.

Lawmakers calling for a break-up of Facebook surely had a tanker full of fuel delivered to them courtesy of the shutdown. The British ones didn’t even need the help of the Army, which has been called upon to deliver the regular stuff.

Facebook’s shutdown was deadly serious for the dizzying array of businesses that are partially or wholly reliant upon the social network and its platforms. It was deadly serious for the non-profit organisations that use it as a means of communication. Ditto governments and other bodies, many of which do the same.

Some commentators expressed pleasure in the sense of calm they felt in the absence of the sound and fury that social media coughs up. In that respect, this was a zen moment for the world.

But six hours is also more than enough time to miss out on a big order for a business struggling to rebuild revenues dealt a devastating blow to the pandemic. Enough to make the difference between survival and failure? Possibly.

We will be hearing a lot about “digital resilience” in the coming days. The world’s various English language dictionaries will probably put it up for inclusion as a new phrase by the time we’re done, if they haven’t already. The debate should be heeded.

It will still be months, if not longer, before the political and regulatory challenges facing Facebook are resolved. There is a bureaucratic soup to be navigated before any action is taken, one that will inevitably be stirred up and thickened by lobbyists along the way.

Businesses and other bodies that have been overly reliant on Facebook may very well decide that they need to address the issues this has thrown up with a degree more speed, at least if they can.

The social network is already struggling with the young. The market may yet issue another corrective.