When Internet Crashes, So Does The Economy

The Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram crash two weeks ago wasn’t catastrophic for most people. While I noticed that I couldn’t see any images, for several hours I thought it was a browser error. Still, given that I have a relatively healthy regard for social media, I shrugged my shoulders and moved on with my work. I use the internet primarily for research and even though I do frequently write on social media, the jpeg crisis was minor for me compared to companies that depend on these outlets for advertising. The BBC reported how this crisis adds up financially with Facebook facing “the possibility of refunds for advertisers” and many businesses reporting how Facebook Workplace is their only means of communication. And since March’s last major Facebook outage, companies like Wonghaus Ventures reported $10,000 in losses, as well as millions of other companies, were negatively affected by the loss of revenue and advertising potential. We are seeing with these minor crashes that the repercussions are far afield from simply the inability to post pictures of our lunch. Social media might be a secondary tool for most users, but for businesses, it can be the lifeblood of their public relations as it can be for those working in tandem with social media such as influencers who are not paid when outages occur. Read more at Forbes.