The Real Reason for Facebook, Instagrams and WhatsApps Blackout
What Happened With Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp?
Yesterday Facebook and its other owned platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp were down for a whole six hours.
“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication,” Original Post to Facebooks Blog
Now without being too conspiritorially minded here, a multi-billion dollar company going down for six hours is one thing but three all going down for such a prolonged period of time is more than suspect.
Our website is a small operation, trivial in comparison to Facebook; this is something that would not happen to us, so to happen to a company this size is bizarre.
Our Theory
This event had caused Facebook's share price to take a big hit and had caused losses close to a billion dollars, which relative to the overall share price is change between the sofa. However, this was also convenient for Facebook as there was a Facebooks whistleblower due to testify before congress who accused them of repeatedly putting profit rather than clamping down on "hate speech".
This would make a lot of sense and I don't believe in coincidences enough to say that Facebook didn't do this deliberately. I think that censorship on any level is unjust, and "hate speech" is an arbitrary term at the very best.
Many frustrated Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users took to Twitter to voice their anger; to me this was pathetic. Using one highly censorious platform to complain about another which may or may not be worse seems more than a little pointless.
Are We Not Missing the Point?
Yes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter are all unethical companies, but it seems most people are missing the point entirely. The reason they have so much control, is that the majority of people gave them this control by being complacent and lazy. These services are given to you for "Free" and the saying I think is most apt here is:
If you're not paying for the product, you are THE PRODUCT!
And it is true, if you take a look at Mark Zuckerborg and Facebook, they paid $20 Billion for WhatsApp a decade ago, if you think this was done out of benevolence and they wanted to give you the ability to make free messages, voice and video calls to anyone, anywhere in the world and for there to be no hidden cost, then I am sorry you are not paying attention.
The reason why these companies make so much money is they not only make money from advertising, they know everything about you. And I mean EVERYTHING, not just the information you voluntarily publish to your profile about your hobbies, interests, books, films, clothing brands, sports teams and your political views; by owning Facebook and other big tech platform accounts, even when you're not logged in, whatever websites and blogs you visit, if those sites have social media share and analytic buttons (which most do), these companies also know what you get up to when you are not on their platforms.
This information is sold to the highest bidder and also shared with government agencies all around the world.
So maybe this does not concern you enough that these monstrosity platforms can and will:
- Actively spy on you
- Actively censor you
- Manipulate the information you receive.
- If you don't comply they will "de-platform" you
Then if these don't apply to you and you follow all their rules
- They can still cut off everyone when they decide to conveniently shut down their service.
And guess what, they arguably have the right to do this as they are the owner and you are the user.
Summary -What is the solution?
As we have covered on numerous occasions, GET OFF THESE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS, or maybe better still, encourage your friends and family to go to where they are better treated. Do not expect anything for free. Follow our recommendations:
RSS Feeds
For getting regular updates from blogs and websites you visit I would highly recommend using RSS to get updates in a way that respect your privacy and also stop you from getting distracted by the big tech apps which actively want you to be distracted and focus on nonsense articles. My go to RSS app is Feeder App but regardless of your device you will find great RSS apps.
Flote = Alternative to Facebook and Twitter
Get o Flote App - Flote is a social network without big tech censorship and vague community guidelines. On Flote people can express themselves freely, build communities. Not only will you be treated better, but you can also backup your Facebook account content within minutes so if you do get kicked off Facebook or their service goes down you wont lose your photos and your content etc.
XMPP = Alternative to WhatsApp
As we explained in our Networking Page page, the best option alternative to WhatsApp is XMPP. We provide an XMPP server, but if you see and appreciate the significance of having a federated instant messenger then set up your own XMPP server or get different accounts with different providers for better redundancy, whatever way you go you can still join our groups that you can find here Our XMPP Groups/Rooms.
LBRY / Odysee = Alternative to YouTube
LBRY - If you are sick of the censorship that is happening on YouTube then the best alternative, by far is LBRY app or their more user friendly app Odysee. Both will take you to the same content, but try both. The beauty of this platform is all video content is published on the blockchain and shared amongst hundreds of thousands and soon to be, millions of computers, so the redundancy is enough to ensure that it cannot be taken down. I encourage you to look into LBRY and the great work they've been doing.
Don't forget any platform you use, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter and YouTube can take you down and be taken down themselves doe to their centralised nature. I would give a lot of thought to how much you use the big tech platforms to communicate with friends and family and how many of your friends use them to do their communication. Then ask yourself how things would look if they were taken down?
If you want to be independent of this nonsense and want to be able to build true community then join our XMPP server or start your own and get involved in our XMPP community.