Facebook is down, WhatsApp and Instagram also hairy

What's the deal with Facebook right now – and what's happening with WhatsApp and Instagram? Several major social networks were effectively put out of commission this morning by a yet-unnamed software issue. While Snapchat and Twitter rest on different, separate servers from the rest, while the rest are owned by Facebook. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all under the one umbrella, also called Facebook.

UPDATE: It would appear that Snapchat is down or was down for a few hours, at least, earlier today. Not necessarily DOWN like their servers were down, but service disruptions seem to have occurred, stopping some users from sending or receiving targeted "snaps." According to DownDetector, this "outage" was far less an issue than those at Facebook and etcetera.

Where the Snapchat issue had complaints on "down" seeking sites reaching in the 50s, over a thousand people checked in to DownDetector with issues in the last couple hours, at one point. This is a real-deal issue, marked mostly by a cutting of imagery. This would point toward server downtime – total blackouts and log-in issues were far less widespread.

WhatsApp issues centered largely on errors in sending and receiving media of all sorts. "Download failed," the errors read, "Can't download. Please ask that it be resent to you." The "it" being the media in question. You couldn't even download an image of your grandmother, not even if you really wanted to do so!

According to an anonymous statement from a source with information on the subject, developers at Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram are currently working on detection of the issues at hand. Facebook officials suggested that they are aware of issues in uploading and downloading of images and videos. Cross your fingers the fixes are in soon!

Meanwhile let's be thankful for all the good things we have in life, like silence.