If you tried to post something to social media Wednesday, it was probably just a normal day if you were using Twitter. Facebook and Instagram users weren’t as lucky.
It was first reported at 9:56 a.m. by outage-tracking site downdetector.com that users around the world were reporting issues with the social media network. But it didn’t appear to affect everyone. Some users could proceed as normal, but others were left stumped in front of their computers and mobile devices. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason.
As of 6 p.m. Wednesday, some users were still reporting problems logging into and posting on Facebook and Instagram.
The Vail Daily was certainly not immune to the outage, not being able to post since an initial post early Wednesday morning. It was especially frustrating considering the amount of updates coming in from around the county, and the state, regarding the day’s blizzard conditions and rampant closures of schools, roads and businesses.
Large media outlets, such as The New York Times and USA Today, weren’t able to deliver their usual deluge of Facebook posts throughout the day — an unusual sight for the media giants. But the same was true for the Denver Post and regional news sites that use Facebook to boost the reach of content on their website, just like we do at The Vail Daily.
But the outage, which Facebook continued to say it was diligently fixing during the day — much to no avail as of the time being, forced social media users to close their apps and go directly to news sites online. Instead of mindlessly scrolling past photos of a friend’s lunch or clueless, rambling posts from an elderly aunt, millions of Facebook users had to visit their trusted news source directly. Perhaps they discovered content they never would have otherwise.
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It’s probable that office productivity around the world also soared today as a result of the social media slowdown — not being able to sit around on Facebook all day. Employers rejoice.
This article was updated with information from The Vail Daily.