Tue, 21-Oct-2025

Why did Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp shut down?

PARIS: Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world’s reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant. But what actually caused the outage?  What does Facebook say happened? In an apologetic blog post, Santosh Janardhan, Facebook’s vice president of … Read more

Global outage of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp sparked a meme frenzy on Twitter

outage of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp sparked a meme frenzy

Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram experienced a significant global outage that lasted over six hours late Monday evening. The outage, which left billions of people unable to access these apps or send or receive messages, prompted users to vent their frustrations on Twitter, with many asking why the services were down. The sudden influx of users … Read more

Facebook: Man forgets to hide bag of meth during live video, gets arrested

Facebook: Man forgets to hides a bag of meth in the post was arrested

A Missouri man was arrested after a bag of methamphetamine and a syringe was discovered in the backdrop of his photo while he was trying to sell a catalytic converter on Facebook. According to the media, James Kertz, 38, was arrested on Wednesday after posting the photo on Facebook Marketplace. Sheriff Doug Rader of Stone … Read more

Facebook whistleblower to push for regulating social media giant

Facebook prohibit the publication of report that cast it in a negative light

WASHINGTON. A Facebook whistleblower goes before United States lawmakers on Tuesday to urge regulation of the social media giant, after an outage impacted potentially billions of users and highlighted global dependence on its services. The former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was set to testify on Capitol Hill after she leaked reams of internal research to authorities and … Read more

Zuckerberg loses over $6b after Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram suffer global outage

WASHINGTON: Facebook battled duelling crises Monday as potentially billions of users were impacted when its dominant social network went offline for seven hours, and the company fought against a whistleblower’s damning revelations. Many long-held fears and criticisms about the platform seem to have been backed up by Facebook’s own research, which ex-worker Frances Haugen has … Read more

If you thought that was Dwayne Johnson ‘The Rock’, you’re not alone

If you thought that was Dwayne Johnson 'The Rock', you're not alone

You might find it difficult to believe the photo isn’t of Dwayne Johnson, but it is of an American cop who has gone viral for his remarkable resemblance to the Hollywood star. Lieutenant Eric Fields of the Morgan County Patrol in Alabama first drew the attention of the internet earlier this month when his photo … Read more

Facebook publicizes a $50M investment fund to develop its virtual metaverse

Facebook

Facebook publicized that it will give $50M to a 2-year fund tasked with starting work on understanding the company’s vision for a virtual metaverse. The announcement says that the roadmap of Facebook for building its metaverse, with the funding scheduled to back “global research and program partners” watching to build out the platform in addition … Read more

Florida woman’s misplaced puppy reappears on Facebook nearly a year later

Florida woman's misplaced puppy reappears on Facebook

A 15-year-old dog who went missing from his Florida home was reunited with his owner nearly a year later when she discovered his photo on an animal rescue’s Facebook page. Lisa Raulerson stated that in October 2020, she was living in a West Palm Beach cottage when her 15-year-old dog, Sparky, escaped through a gate … Read more

WhatsApp announces end-to-end encrypted backups on iCloud, Google Drive

WhatsApp announces end-to-end encrypted backups on iCloud, Google Drive

Whatsapp has announced its end-to-end encrypted backups for iCloud and Google Drive, according to the statement by the messaging app. On its Twitter handle, the instant messaging platform said users can now make sure that their “bestie’s voice messages and mum’s secret recipe will be safely stored in a place only [they] can access”. “Developing … Read more

Texas bans social networks booting users over politics

IHC appoints experts to review social media laws

Texas on Thursday made it illegal for popular social media platforms to ban users ‘simply based on their political viewpoints.’ Political conservatives have accused Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants of stifling their voices, providing no evidence to support the claims. Social media platforms have consistently defended themselves against such accusations. Former US President … Read more

Sailors puzzled by a ‘Pig-Faced’ Shark caught in Italy, pictures are going viral

Sailors Puzzled by a 'Pig-Faced' Shark Caught in Italy Going Viral

A fish with the body of a shark and the face of a pig was dragged out of the sea by Italian navy officers who were perplexed by their unusual catch. The fish was discovered in the waters of the Darsena Medicea marina in the town of Portoferraio on the Italian island of Elba, according … Read more

Facebook apologises for mislabeling dark skinned people as ‘primates’

Facebook ban Australia

Recently, the social media leader, Facebook landed itself in hot waters after it referred to the Black people as ‘primates’. The social media giant, instantly came to its defense after disabling its topic recommendation feature right after a huge blunder occurred from its end. The Facebook recommendation feature mistook black men as primates on the … Read more

Instagram seems to have stopped working correctly

Instagram

The social networking service, Instagram seems to have stopped working correctly, with users grumpy they are not capable to use it as normal.

The news feed would not revive, direct messages would not send, or comments could not be written – also with not being able to enter into the app at all, were among the complaints.

The glitches were experienced around the globe, as per the tracking website Down Detector, which recommended there had been problems all morning but they had spiked around noon time.

But it did not seem to be affecting all users. Few seemed to be capable to load and interact with their news feed as usual – and it is not clear what permitted them to get around the problems.

Facebook, in a statement, stated that it was alert of the problems with Instagram. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience,”

Down Detector said that the problem could be with the company’s servers, and the same problems possibly are faced by WhatsApp and Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook management have been observing to more carefully connect its three messaging platforms, with the expectation of letting them all be powered by the same backend.

Users would be able to communicate between the three apps in this way. However, critics have pointed out that it would make any regulatory split difficult or impossible – and that issues with one of Facebook’s services tend to spread to others.

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US aiming new lawsuit at Google over ads: report

Did you know? Google has recently launched death benefits for employees,

US officials are preparing a new antitrust lawsuit against Google over its power in the online advertising market, according to a Bloomberg report. Bloomberg cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter as saying the Justice Department could file the litigation by the end of the year. Google did not immediately respond to an AFP … Read more

Facebook denies BTC but accepts Non-Fungible Tokens

Facebook

Facebook is certain “not prepared” to include its stablecoin Diem into the mix so far, as the present structure wants an important upgrading for that. But as a “last resort,” if there’s no alternate method to provide value to customers, they might think through doing that, Marcus stated.

Head of Novi & Diem Co-Creator David Marcus stated “Blockchain is going to be transformational for the metaverse,”

He said,

“But we’re very determined and very motivated to launch with a stablecoin. And on a network that enables us to actually really change the game.”

Marcus also realizes CBDC (central bank digital currencies) arise over time, which will “bring an additional level of trust in the underlying digital currency that people use.” And after that takes place, Facebook will too be using that CBDC.

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Facebook Messenger adding new features to the app

Facebook is bringing voice and video calling to its social networking service. This is a new attempt to improve the communication features of Messenger after it was discontinued in 2014 as a separate app.

According to the United States, users in some countries will be able to make audio or video calls from the Facebook app starting from Monday. Connor Hayes, director of product management at Messenger, says the new feature is just a test but aims to reduce the need to switch between Facebook’s main app and its messenger service.

Facebook also began testing a limited version of Messenger’s inbox in the main Facebook app last fall. Messenger was first created in the Facebook app but the company removed it 7 years ago and forced users to download a separate app to send private messages from mobile phones.

The latest test was conducted on Monday, a slow but steady effort to internally integrate all of Facebook’s apps and services.

Hayes added that Facebook is beginning to see Messenger as a service rather than just an app, meaning people will use the technology in other ways – to watch videos or play games on Facebook. Relying on video chat while playing Messenger, voice and video calls using Messenger technology are available on other Facebook platforms including Instagram, Oculus and Portal devices.

“You’re starting to see some of these things over time,” said Director Product Management Messenger. Which service do they want to use?

Facebook first enabled messaging between the Instagram app and Messenger in September last year and plans to roll out the feature in its WhatsApp messaging service.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg argues that integrating the company’s messaging services is beneficial to consumers, allowing them to reach more people and reducing the need to download or jump separate apps.

In this regard, critics say that Facebook is linking its services to each other, which may make it impossible to stop the company from going up.

Federal regulators filed an antitrust lawsuit last week to force Facebook to end the mess on Instagram and WhatsApp.

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Facebook plans to merge its Novi Wallet with the Diem Stablecoin

Facebook

Facebook intends to use its Novi wallet to assist users interested in entering the NFT market.

Head of Facebook Financial, David Marcus, developer of the Novi wallet stated that Facebook is watching at ways to get into the NFT space.

By considering the present trend of Non-Fungible tokens, Marcus believes that Facebook is in a great position to take benefit of it. He stated that Novi Digital is “ready now”, but that they are waiting to launch in tandem with the Facebook-backed Diem digital currency.

The project is ditched due to pressure from regulators and lawmakers.

The Diem is a stablecoin backed by the US dollar that is expected to be released later this year. Regulators are still closely monitoring it, as they were with Libra.

Perhaps in order to appease these regulators, the Diem organization did publicize that it was complete to extract the Diem stablecoin after a digital dollar, in the form of a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) was moved out.

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ICC updates its Facebook cover photo after Pakistan wins the match

ICC updates its Facebook cover photo after Pakistan wins the match

ICC has updated its cover photo on Facebook. It is not of Pat Cummins, who is currently leading the ICC men’s Test bowling ranking, nor Ravichandran Ashwin. For the first time, the council has updated its cover photo with Shaheen Shah Afridi after he achieved his personal best figures. He displayed extraordinary performance, which helped … Read more

Novi Digital, a cryptocurrency wallet soon to be launched by Facebook

Facebook grapples with another global outage

Novi Digital, a cryptocurrency wallet that will be introduced soon by Facebook. The wallet would be tied to the Diem Blockchain system.

Board member of Diem and Facebook’s financial services chief, David Marcus, claimed that the current cash-run economy has left 1.7 billion persons “unbanked or underbanked” and still the procedure is really slow.

Marcus stated, “Change is long overdue. It will happen in one way or another. Novi is ready to come to market. We feel that it’s unreasonable to delay delivering the benefits of cheaper, interoperable, more accessible digital payments,”

The launch of the Diem program was planned for the first half of the year 2021, however, the reason for the delay is due to the government Facebook inquiry.

Diem, formerly known as Libra, is a stable coin that converts money transferred to a digital wallet into digital cash and makes it simple to transmit money over the world.

With more than $100 billion costs of transactions in 55 currencies, Facebook, as a payment platform has already been made.

“It’s a misconception that digital assets are by definition anonymous. Built and configured the right way, stable coins and wallets put customer due diligence at the center of their approach to compliance.” Marcus wrote.

As per the post, the firm is trying to meet the terms with the regulators. “It has addressed every legitimate concern that was raised on its journey to design and build a high-quality stable coin”

He added, “This is with extensive consumer protections, and a highly compliant payments network to support it all within the U.S. regulatory perimeter.”

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10 mind blowing tech news to keep you updated with the current tech affairs

Here are some amazing technology related news that will make us realize we have been living under a rock all this time. Onlyfans is working on banning some adult content The UK based content subscription service has decided to block sexually explicit content in order to cut down pornography. During the pandemic the subscriptions of … Read more

Facebook is testing Reels in News Feed and Groups in the United States

Facebook is testing Reels in News Feed and Groups in the United States

Facebook users in the United States may see Reels, according to media, Instagram’s take on TikTok-like short-form movies, appear throughout the company’s main app. If Facebook accepts you into the test, you’ll notice the clips in your News Feed and Groups. The project is an extension of one that Facebook is already doing in Canada, … Read more

Facebook has launched a tool to assist Afghans in locking down their accounts

Facebook has launched a tool to assist Afghans in locking down their accounts

Facebook is releasing a new tool to assist Afghans in securing the privacy settings on their accounts. According to Facebook’s Head of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher, the “one-click” tool would enable privacy settings for timeline postings and prevent profile images from being saved or shared. According to Gleicher’s screenshots, the functionality will urge users to … Read more

Facebook to continue the ban on Taliban related content post fall of Afghanistan

The social media leader, Facebook has declared to filter posts involving the mention of Taliban, considering the extremist group as a terrorist organization. The company further elucidates on its dedicated team that has been directed to monitor such posts, and instantly remove any such content closely linked to the terrorist group. “The Taliban is sanctioned … Read more

Annoyed by the birthday notifications on Facebook? follow these steps to disable the feature

Receiving unnecessary notifications on Facebook often gets irritating, especially when it’s not related to you. It pisses you off even more when you have to open the application, only to find out it’s somebody’s birthday and the app is reminding you to wish the person you have not spoken to, in years. When you have … Read more

Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook blocked in Zambia during presidential elections

Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook blocked in Zambia during presidential elections

Whatsapp and other social media apps are reportedly blocked in Zambia during the ongoing presidential elections on Thursday, as reported by digital rights organization Access Now and internet monitor NetBlocks. Lusaka Times, a local Zambian news organization, writes that officials from Zambia’s Ministry of Information and Broadcast Services decided to bring down Whatsapp and other … Read more

Facebook Launches Prayer Tool, And Now It Asks for Your Prayers

Facebook fined

The social media leader, Facebook, has launched its prayer tool after the recent surge in prayer requests in regular Facebook posts. The feature can be used in public groups, to rally prayer power for multiple purposes. After the prayer post gets approved, those who prayed, tap the ‘I prayed’ option or simply leave an emoji … Read more