Much of the U.S., the United Kingdom, and parts of Europe were without Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp this morning. The timing sparked a lot of speculation on Twitter that the outage was caused by something more than a technical issue.
The Wall Street Journal has been publishing hard-hitting pieces on the tech giant's inner workings for weeks. The reports suggesting a slew of unethical business actions were based on the testimony of a whistleblower who went public in a 60 Minutes interview.
In recent weeks, a succession of investigative articles have portrayed a poor picture of Facebook, which is already being probed by government regulators.
They based their findings on documents released by Frances Haugen, a former product manager who went public on "60 Minutes."
Haugen left Facebook in May when the company dismantled her division, which worked to combat misinformation on the platform. On Sunday, October 3rd, she gave her first talk. She stated that the company prioritizes contentious content over safety in order to maximize profits.
The two occurrences were quickly linked by Twitter sleuths, who accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of "deliberately" shutting down the social media platforms to avoid "scandal."
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Tuesday that the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee will convene a hearing to hear from Haugen about Facebook and Instagram's impact on adolescent users after the whistleblower's identity was made public.
Haugen's claims have been denied by Facebook.
"We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content," Facebook said in response to the claims.
"To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true. If any research had identified an exact solution to these complex challenges, the tech industry, governments, and society would have solved them a long time ago."
After a multi-hour outage, service appears to be restored for most Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users as of Monday night.
Following the whistleblower's claims and the downtime, Facebook's stock plummeted on Monday, marking its worst day of the year. At closing, the stock was trading at $326.23 a share, down 16.78 points or 4.89%.
