Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage (opens in new tab)

There is a period just before the freeze which can also get a bit hectic, but we should be well beyond that point for most relevant services by now. Don't know the exact dates since I left in September. But your point stands: holiday freezes exist and are taken seriously.

Depending on your current level, this can be the same thing (Facebook has an "engineering progression" - there's a time frame within which you're expected to be promoted to a certain level).

In FAANG for typical SWEs it is rare for to outright get fired for a mistake. How you handle the mistake matters a lot though. Usually if things are less than perfect during performance reviews, you just don't get promoted.

I work in one of these companies and I can confirm that is a network outage and even our internal tools hosted in our datacenter (so no dependencies with fb) are down

This has nothing to do with solar flares or cycles.

'Solar Flares'?

I recognize a fellow BOFH...

I know Telegram is less secure and Secret Chats are an opt-in. Security-wise Signal would be better... but:

Signal experience isn't that good. Alien from the platform they run on. For example, no system recommendations to send this person a message or share something with them through signal.. Telegram is more a platform native and integrated into the system.

Also there is the issue of messages arriving late (not minutes but hours late, sometimes days late)

Signal needs to up its game. The experience is very far from being as polished as Telegram.

I wish Signal didn't require a phone number, otherwise everything else about it is nice. I don't want to be required to have a phone number, let alone provide it to them.

I'll switch to signal when they have reproducible builds on iOS.

Because few people care about privacy but many care about UI, UX & features. Telegram is better there than any other chat app by a susbstantial margin.

They're totally different apps! Signal's focus is 1-to-1 encrypted chats. Telegram's focus is broadcasting messages and group chats. One of them is a secure messenger, the other is a social media network on top of a messaging app.

At least Telegram can be used on a desktop without installing it on a spyphone (though without e2e encryption).

I would say "why not Matrix?".

Because Signal is virtually unknown here. Telegram has a small, but growing following. I'm aware that Telegram uses homegrown encryption which is not ideal.

why Signal and not wire? (no sim card needed), No need to allow access to your address book to make group chat. Works in browser, ios, android, desktop app. Using signal protocol. And you can draw in it.

Coz , if a lot of people use Signal, govts would surely want to peek into the chats

Sorry if my wording was unclear. The US part only referred to getting in trouble.

If you wonder why I think they may geoblock European users, it's mostly because that's how many American companies are dealing with GDPR (especially retail businesses, but also major media outlets).

Fix the outage, then blatantly copy the competitors' features and force it to their existing user base.

Do you have invites for https://pixelfed.social/ ?

Would love one if someone has them... daron@hey.com

Yep. Mine was running happily as well.

Isn't tiktok videos? Of the people who I watch interact with Instagram, easily 90% of their consumption is pictures

Watching even a short video isn't the same experience as rapidly scrolling through a gallery of pictures

the status page needs a status page

There are options sure but on my friends case I can see people aren't so eager to leave the most popular applications/networks, the privacy argument is often shunned with classic "I don't have anything to hide" line and often one is "I won't be installing another app on my x/y/z".

But Telegram still seems to be most popular second choice after Messenger and/or WhatsApp - I've seen recently two people joining it out of sudden (perhaps messenger gained traction because of Belarus situation); personally that's my default instant messenger nowadays, while Signal is the backup one. I'd like to move everyone to element/matrix but that's rather impossible to achieve...

Signal can also function as SMS client on Android, so it's easy to communicate with those who have Signal or use plain SMS; besides additional hardening against SMS based exploits.

> there's still WhatsApp,

Literally in the headline. (unless it's been edited)

How many people can you reach with WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Messenger? How many people can you reach with SMS? Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2365

Do you think that Facebook users worry much about their privacy?

I find it funny how every single service builds out a community infrastructure, complete with messaging for near-synchronous and more async communication.

I've always been a fan of distributed resiliency but when it comes to basic communications, I don't have the time or motivation to hunt down the service and method of communication within that service some person chooses to use. I much prefer ubiquitous communication, at least from a user interaction stand-point.

Older messenger applications often supported handfuls to dozens of popular communication systems so you could interact with one touch point/interface, and coukd still benefit from the fact the marketplace was forcing some competition while your communication wouldn't be strangled by some single private entity's policies or actions.

For myself and others in my social circle (mid 30's Americans), we'll often comment on something in each others' Instagram Stories and have a casual chat. Usually these are quick conversations, and longer ones are on some other pure messaging platform.

I used igdm. Until I stopped using ig itself, several weeks ago. Like I did FB many, many years ago. I didn't close down the accounts either. I just stopped using them. Stopping that, and a good clear out of bookmarks [deleted], mail-subscriptions etc has forced me to restart my onlininess (save for very basic email). Feel much better, and I'd like to start the next year 'clean'.

As a 22YO, I use it just as much as messenger. The generation a under me uses insta DMs even more.

It's easiest to share instagram posts via instagram DM to friends.

>I can find a legal solution to your technical blockades. Be careful what you ask for.

legislative... senator.

This is fun to read but also implies that we have representatives competent enough to even understand things at this level. Maybe they don't have to understand it, I doubt they even consult someone who could help them understand this.

It would also be a hilarious argument to make after previously convincing the European Commission in 2014 that there is no technical way to integrate Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp user accounts. [0]

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/IP_17_...

> Saying everything is so integrated that it can't possibly be decentralized is basically proof of monopoly.

That doesn't make any sense to me. I would expect different applications from the same company to share the same underlying infrastructure. Whether or not they are a monopoly is orthogonal to the issue of integration.

> Saying everything is so integrated that it can't possibly be decentralized is basically proof of monopoly.

This doesn't matter from the standard of antitrust law. What most fail to grasp is that being a monopoly is not illegal. It's only illegal to use monopoly power to harm consumer welfare.

In this case integration between services is a pretty strong defense against this. Facebook can argue that consolidating the infrastructure allows them to deliver each product at a lower cost and/or higher quality than if it was served independently.

If the court accepted those facts, then Facebook would have a ironclad argument against being broken up under the consumer welfare standard.

IIRC this is exactly what MS claimed about bundling IE : it was tied into the kernel.

I think the arguments will be

- FTC Approved these as as legitimate acquisitions

- Facebook has direct competitors that can overtake them in just a few years

- Instagram was made by a few python coders in months. This shows how easy it is to make a product that competes with Facebook

Agreed.

FYI that's exactly what they did when they broke up Ma Bell into the 7 RBOC's. Same company, same massive infrastructure. They owned everything and the government was still able to break them up.

What? How is that proof for a monopoly. Doubt things are that integrated but if they were then it would be proof of incompetence.