Without Facebook
Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp went down — and we survived
What a day it was. Starting around noon on Monday, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all went offline. These ultra-popular social networks and communication platforms didn't just sputter, they essentially disappeared.
It was a calamity for Facebook (which owns all three services) and its investors, but a rare opportunity for the rest of us to remember what life was like before they existed.
Granted, Twitter was alive and well, buckling slightly under the weight of all those Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users seeking refuge and a way to communicate. TikTok became a place to troll Facebook, and the names of countless other social platform options popped up.
The timing of the collapse was coincidentally (or not) less than 12 hours after the once-anonymous Facebook whistleblower appeared on 60 Minutes and aired a whole lot of Facebook dirty laundry. Between that and the treasure trove of Facebook internal research detailing how Facebook and Instagram can sometimes harm teens, few were openly expressing their love of any of the Facebook-owned platforms.
Still, when they all went down at around noon ET on Monday, there was a kind of panic: People staring at their phones, tapping, shaking, cursing, and wondering…
