Gab.com chief Andrew Torba posted a thank you note to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg online on Monday.
The “Thanks, Zuck!” note came because Facebook and several of its affiliate companies posted a flurry of computer software updates early in the day, and took the sites completely offline.
The software collapse was so complete there were reports Facebook fixers couldn’t even access their work areas because their security clearances weren’t being recognized.
Hours later, consumers still were getting the message from the site, as well as related Instagram and WhatsApp locations, was unavailable.
“JUST IN – Facebook employees reportedly can’t enter buildings to evaluate the Internet outage because their door access badges weren’t working (NYT),” an online statement said.
“With Facebook offline Gab’s traffic is exploding today, Thanks, Zuck!” Torba said.
Reuters reported, hours after the collapse, it was being worked on.
“The disruption … comes a day after a whistleblower accused the firm of repeatedly prioritizing profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation,” the report said.
“Shares of Facebook (FB.O), which has nearly 2 billion daily active users, opened lower after the weekend’s whistleblower report and slipped further to trade down 5.3% in afternoon trading on Monday. They were on track for their worst day in nearly a year, amid a broader selloff in technology stocks on Monday,” the report explained.
“Facebook was inaccessible because users were not being directed to the correct place by the Domain Name System. Facebook itself controls the relevant settings,” Reuters said.
The report explained it likely was a “configuration error” that prevented users from reaching the Facebook servers.
Sabotage is “theoretically possible,” although it more likely was “the result of an internal mistake,” the report said.
Facebook was not providing any specifics, the report said.
“Facebook’s response was made much more difficult because employees lost access to some of their own tools in the shutdown, people tracking the matter said,” Reuters confirmed.
The failure also was affecting various third-party applications such as the Pokemon Go and Match Masters programs, the report said.
The Daily Mail reported that Twitter traffic, too, was up during the Facebook shutdown.
“Hello literally everyone,” was Twitter’s tongue-in-cheek message.
Gab has promoted itself as the free speech site available to Americans who dislike the censorship of conservative and other views on Facebook and its subsidiaries.
It also recently created a “No Vax Mandate Job Board” to help American employers and workers who want nothing to do with the shots.
“Is your current employer forcing you to inject a foreign substance into your body in order to retain work?” asked Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab. “Are you a business owner who doesn’t do this and is looking to hire? Join the No Vax Mandate Job Board on Gab.”
Torba says he created the group “in light of the Biden Administration encouraging employers to mandate vaccines in order to retain employment while ironically not requiring vaccination mandates for their own staff.”
He pointed out that Facebook and other Big Tech giants are working to silence and “fact check” anything that disagrees with their own ideology, so “Gab remains committed to mission of being the home of free speech, individual sovereignty, and the free flow of information online.”
One online commenter pointed out that as long as Facebook was down, it could not be censoring conservatives.
On the bright side, Facebook can’t censor while it’s down.
VP of Free Speech America @dangainor speculates why Facebook is down hours before its congressional hearing. pic.twitter.com/6WR6gC5Wf1
— Free Speech America (@FreeSpeechAmer) October 4, 2021
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