Protest group SumOfUs erected a 2.3-metre tall visual protest outside the US Capitol in Washington depicting Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg surfing on a wave of cash, while young women around him appear to be suffering. AP
Protest group SumOfUs erected a 2.3-metre tall visual protest outside the US Capitol in Washington depicting Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg surfing on a wave of cash, while young women around him appear to be suffering. AP
Protest group SumOfUs erected a 2.3-metre tall visual protest outside the US Capitol in Washington depicting Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg surfing on a wave of cash, while young women aroun
Facebook was grappling with multiple crises on Monday after a whistle-blower accused it of prioritising profit over safety and a massive outage left millions of users without access to the world’s biggest social media platform and its affiliated apps and services.
Compounding the company’s woes, its share price dropped nearly five per cent amid a broader tech sell off, wiping billions of dollars off CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth.
With some 2.7 billion users, the effects of the outage were felt quickly and widely, particularly for those who have come to rely on Facebook-owned messaging services.
Here's what you need to know about Mr Zuckerberg's rough week so far, keeping in mind that it is only Monday:
Widespread panic
It wasn't just Facebook that was down. All of its other services, from Instagram to WhatsApp to Facebook Messenger, were offline for more than five hours on Monday. Service began to return on Monday evening.
Problems for Facebook and its affiliated apps started just before noon New York time. There were also reports that its work-orientated platform, Workplace, was down too. The company is solely dependent on the platform, leaving staff virtually unable to work.
Hear the whistle blowing
Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistle-blower, speaks to Scott Pelley on CBS News's '60 Minutes' on Sunday. AFP
The outage came the day after a Facebook whistle-blower, Frances Haugen, revealed herself on national US television on Sunday evening.
Ms Haugen, who began working for the social site in 2019 and resigned in April 2021, leaked internal documents to The Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Congress and other news outlets.
The documents reveal that the social network knows about the damages it brings to certain populations and demographics.
The documents claim Facebook has opted to focus on profit before fixing those issues, which range from hate speech to posts inciting violence, and mental health dangers for teenage users.
“There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook,” Ms Haugen told CBS News's 60 Minutes on Sunday evening.
“Facebook over and over again chose to optimise for its own interests, like making more money.”
Ms Haugen is also due to testify before a Senate commerce subcommittee on Tuesday, where she will claim Facebook is operating with no oversight.
"When we realised tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action," Ms Haugen's prepared testimony says, according to Reuters.
"When we figured out cars were safer with seatbelts, the government took action. I implore you to do the same here."
"This is just the latest in a series of revelations about social media platforms that make clear that self-regulation is not working," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday.
Ms Psaki said President Joe Biden and his administration would support "fundamental reforms [and] efforts to address these issues".
The harder they fall
The crises over Sunday and Monday are also hitting Facebook's pocket.
Facebook is financially known as the fifth most valuable company, according to Reuters, and the company's stock has declined about 5 per cent on Monday.
Mr Zuckerberg may have lost at least $7 billion in net worth with the stock decline, making him fall in a global ranking of billionaires, Bloomberg News reported.
Facebook blamed a "faulty configuration change" for the outage.
Facebook's vice president of infrastructure Santosh Janardhan apologised on Tuesday morning.
"To all the people and businesses around the world who depend on us, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by today’s outage across our platforms. We’ve been working as hard as we can to restore access, and our systems are now back up and running," he posted on Facebook.
"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. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt."
"Our services are now back online and we’re actively working to fully return them to regular operations. We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change."
Mr Janardhan added that Facebook had no evidence of user data being compromised during the downtime.
The outage prompted a flurry of memes on Twitter, with many users drawing on the viral Netflix show Squid Game for inspiration.
Men: Hamad Nawad and Khalid Al Balushi (56kg), Omar Al Fadhli and Saeed Al Mazroui (62kg), Taleb Al Kirbi and Humaid Al Kaabi (69kg), Mohammed Al Qubaisi and Saud Al Hammadi (70kg), Khalfan Belhol and Mohammad Haitham Radhi (85kg), Faisal Al Ketbi and Zayed Al Kaabi (94kg)
Women: Wadima Al Yafei and Mahra Al Hanaei (49kg), Bashayer Al Matrooshi and Hessa Al Shamsi (62kg)
ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA
Starring: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi
5. Neilson Powless (USA) EF Education-Nippo - 0:01:45
Moral education needed in a 'rapidly changing world'
Moral education lessons for young people is needed in a rapidly changing world, the head of the programme said.
Alanood Al Kaabi, head of programmes at the Education Affairs Office of the Crown Price Court - Abu Dhabi, said: "The Crown Price Court is fully behind this initiative and have already seen the curriculum succeed in empowering young people and providing them with the necessary tools to succeed in building the future of the nation at all levels.
"Moral education touches on every aspect and subject that children engage in.
"It is not just limited to science or maths but it is involved in all subjects and it is helping children to adapt to integral moral practises.
"The moral education programme has been designed to develop children holistically in a world being rapidly transformed by technology and globalisation."
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany - At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people - Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed - Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest - He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
About Karol Nawrocki
• Supports military aid for Ukraine, unlike other eurosceptic leaders, but he will oppose its membership in western alliances.
• A nationalist, his campaign slogan was Poland First. "Let's help others, but let's take care of our own citizens first," he said on social media in April.
• Cultivates tough-guy image, posting videos of himself at shooting ranges and in boxing rings.
• Met Donald Trump at the White House and received his backing.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
