What’s Up with WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook?
According to the Associated Press, Ex-Facebook employee Frances Haugen was the source for The Facebook Files series in the New York Times and spoke to Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection Tuesday, stating she believes stricter government oversight is needed.
The article says she accused the company of failing to make changes to Instagram after internal research showed apparent harm to some teens and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation.
On Monday, the social media giant suffered a massive outage. Just before noon, Facebook and apps under the same umbrella, including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, crashed.
Businesses that have become entirely reliant on Facebook or Instagram to promote their goods and collect payment for the same were stuck in limbo. Twitter posts hinted to employees of Facebook scrambling to find the issue and get everything back online. But it was close to 6 pm when the social media giant began to regain consciousness.
An update issued by a Facebook employee said configuration changes to routers and a communication interruption of network traffic between data centers had a cascading effect bringing the services to a halt.
According to the Daily Business Briefing, “3.5 billion people, around the world, use Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram to communicate with friends and family, distribute political messaging, and expand their businesses through advertising and outreach.”
But why?
Why do the mom-and-pop stores want everyone to shop local, spending their hard-earned dollars on advertising on social media?
For one thing, it’s easy or, well, appears to be, but then there are all the algorithms and the SEO that are constantly changing. And, if it is so easy and convenient, then why are more and more companies paying others to handle the social media aspect of the business. And, with the outage that happened on Monday, how many of those businesses were able to conduct business as usual, sell their goods, and bring in needed revenue?
Forget about Facebook for a moment; let’s talk about how many times small businesses are without the internet to conduct daily business. It definitely hinders the workflow here at the Countywide and Sun from time to time. But, for those of you who subscribe to this publication, how often has the paper missed printing a weekly edition?
In fact, during the tornadoes that ravaged Tecumseh, Bethel Acres, Dale, and many other parts of the county, we left our homes and offices to go out and cover the damage and disseminate much needed information for help and needed supplies to the communities. During floods and wildfires, we constantly communicated with local emergency managers to keep the public informed.
During the shutdowns of schools and businesses affected by COVID, we continued to cover the school board meetings, city meetings, county meetings, and visit with Senators and Representatives as well as health officials to keep the community informed. We lost friends and loved ones along with our readers, but we continued to search for updated information to deliver to our family, friends, and local businesses.
Then there were the rolling blackouts and frigid temperatures this past winter. We still did not miss publishing a single edition. Some of us worked from home, while others set up in warehouses and garages to finish our stories and get the next publication printed and delivered to our community.
This is what local papers do. We strive to bring authentic and accurate news that affects the people we know and the communities we love. This same news affects our families and our friends as well.
Yes, we understand you can use social media to promote your product quickly, and we use it also to share news and information. But, we still check our sources and gather documents to back our stories before publishing. Our duty as the government watchdog is to see that rules are followed, and local governments are transparent. This means you will find us sitting through countless long meetings.
We are also at countless events and ballgames, shooting photos and gathering scores. In our spare time, we are visiting with individuals willing to share their stories and documenting the history of our communities for future generations.
We don’t publish much world news, but you can find that easily on the internet. We do publish the news and the stories that affect you every week. We want to continue to bring you this information. Still, like all other small mom and pop businesses, we rely on our communities to buy local, advertise local, subscribe local, and support this small business as you do others in the area.
By Suzie Campbell
