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.
Dolittle
Director: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Michael Sheen
One-and-a-half out of five stars
German intelligence warnings
2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
White hydrogen: Naturally occurring hydrogen Chromite: Hard, metallic mineral containing iron oxide and chromium oxide Ultramafic rocks: Dark-coloured rocks rich in magnesium or iron with very low silica content Ophiolite: A section of the earth’s crust, which is oceanic in nature that has since been uplifted and exposed on land Olivine: A commonly occurring magnesium iron silicate mineral that derives its name for its olive-green yellow-green colour
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Herc's Adventures
Developer: Big Ape Productions Publisher: LucasArts Console: PlayStation 1 & 5, Sega Saturn Rating: 4/5
62kg black belt: Joao Miyao (BRA) bt Wan Ki-chae (KOR), 7-2
69kg black belt: Paulo Miyao (BRA) bt Gianni Grippo (USA), 2-2 (1-0 adv)
77kg black belt: Espen Mathiesen (NOR) bt Jake Mackenzie (CAN)
85kg black belt: Isaque Braz (BRA) bt Faisal Al Ketbi (UAE), 2-0
94kg black belt: Felipe Pena (BRA) bt Adam Wardzinski (POL), 4-0
110kg black belt final: Erberth Santos (BRA) bt Lucio Rodrigues (GBR) via rear naked choke
Essentials The flights: You can fly from the UAE to Iceland with one stop in Europe with a variety of airlines. Return flights with Emirates from Dubai to Stockholm, then Icelandair to Reykjavik, cost from Dh4,153 return. The whole trip takes 11 hours. British Airways flies from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Reykjavik, via London, with return flights taking 12 hours and costing from Dh2,490 return, including taxes. The activities: A half-day Silfra snorkelling trip costs 14,990 Icelandic kronur (Dh544) with Dive.is. Inside the Volcano also takes half a day and costs 42,000 kronur (Dh1,524). The Jokulsarlon small-boat cruise lasts about an hour and costs 9,800 kronur (Dh356). Into the Glacier costs 19,500 kronur (Dh708). It lasts three to four hours. The tours: It’s often better to book a tailor-made trip through a specialist operator. UK-based Discover the World offers seven nights, self-driving, across the island from £892 (Dh4,505) per person. This includes three nights’ accommodation at Hotel Husafell near Into the Glacier, two nights at Hotel Ranga and two nights at the Icelandair Hotel Klaustur. It includes car rental, plus an iPad with itinerary and tourist information pre-loaded onto it, while activities can be booked as optional extras. More information inspiredbyiceland.com
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
By Fiona Sampson
Profile
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister. "We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know. “All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.” It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins. Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement. The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
