Facebook blames itself for massive 40-minute outage that brought world to its knees (update)

Updated: This post was updated at 1:20 a.m. Pacific Time to include a statement from Facebook.

The alert from the Associated Press buzzed across mobile devices everywhere, delivering the shattering news: “Facebook suffers outage affecting users worldwide.”

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The social media apocalypse was here. Instagram was out, too, leaving teenagers confused and scared. Babies wept. Parents sought refuge in shelters they had built for a zombie outbreak or the eventual robot war.

And then, in the ultimate act of desperation, people turned to Twitter. In this moment of panic and despair, #facebookdown began to trend:

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Meanwhile at Facebook HQ #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/gFhI32T4Qq

— 9GAG ❤️ Memeland (@9GAG) January 27, 2015

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#facebookdown #facebook (Repost) pic.twitter.com/hSFK3Q1sfd

— extra3 (@extra3) January 27, 2015

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How to survive Facebook going down: #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/5EYwEFGkWi

— Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) January 27, 2015

We learned some ugly truths.

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I'm outside & I can't figure what filter this is, but it's not awesome. Trees look awful. Hope they didn't pay a lot for this. #facebookdown

— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) January 27, 2015

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Widespread global reports now of a phenomenon called 'talking to each other'. Horrible scenes. #facebookdown

— Sam (@_SamAlex) January 27, 2015

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https://twitter.com/MaronzioVance/status/559973384516558848

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Just had to call someone, open my mouth and speak actual words to wish them a Happy Birthday because #facebookdown :(

— Ripper (@Ace_Of_Pace) January 27, 2015

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There will be a baby boom in 9 months. #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/SKtxoBwdZF

— Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) January 27, 2015

Some sought to take advantage of the moment…

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#FacebookDown, but you needn't be. #GivesYouWings pic.twitter.com/JnVZuNkXdV

— Red Bull India (@redbullindia) January 27, 2015

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what? #facebookdown? read a book for goodness sake! download for free from http://t.co/V7u30BwPhx try it… #LAPL pic.twitter.com/UkOiNiIqID

— L.A. Librarian ?? (@L_A_Librarian) January 27, 2015

But then, a light in the darkness…

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.@facebook has returned. My preciousssss….#facebookdown pic.twitter.com/gTWDb0eVk6

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) January 27, 2015

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After roughly 40 minute outage, #Facebook again accessible in US, Asia, other regions #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/gpxw8VL335

— DW News (@dwnews) January 27, 2015

And humanity sighed in relief, dusted itself off, and carried on…

https://twitter.com/natecochrane/status/559973102591807488

Update at 1:20 a.m.: Facebook released the following statement:

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“Earlier this evening many people had trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram. This was not the result of a third party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems. We moved quickly to fix the problem, and both services are back to 100% for everyone.”