The Day Instagram Went Down
Social media has become the hub of interaction in the modern day. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have taken over the internet and changed the way people live their lives.
Users have been known to change their marital status on Facebook at the altar during their ceremony. Others have been known to stupidly tweet pictures of their debit cards; in fact, there’s an entire twitter account dedicated to the dangerous practice. There areven people posting pictures of themselves, and their food, on Instagram.
It’s because social media has become such a significant part of many cultures that when the sites go down, it feels like a severe disconnect for users.
On Thursday, Instagram users had to deal with their preferred site going down. Many took to one of the other sites in order to search for answers.
Enough people posted on Twitter about the issue that the hashtag “instagramnotworking” began to trend. It’s not the first time a term like that has trended. During a situation where Facebook went down, Twitter noted that the hashtag “facebookdown” was trending.
Instagram went down for a total of two hours during what is known as “#TBT” or “Throwback Thursday.” It’s a day when users share photos from their past.
Many users were getting a “503 Service Unavailable” error message on Instagram whenever they attempted to connect to the site.
That kind of error message can affect all browsers and operating systems. Often, it means that the server that users are trying to connect to is too busy or that maintenance is being performed.
Instagram has released no statements to explain the down-time.
Earlier in the week, however, Instagram launched a new video editing app called Hyperlapse. The app allows Instagram users to create time-lapse videos in high quality and import them onto the app.
One could argue that it’s possible the down-time was caused because the company simply didn’t expect the volume of users interested in Hyperlapse.
Whatever the reason, Instagram is back up and the company likely used the two-hour down-time to get things fixed up on their side.
Most users spent the down-time joking about the effect of Instagram being down.
#instagramnotworking and all over the world, modeling careers have stopped and food is getting cold.
— Selena Starla (@OnlyForSelenas) August 28, 2014
Others simply attempted to confirm that the site was actually down.
Is Instagram down? Again? Or is mine just try a to make me annggrreeeyy? #instagramnotworking #instadown #dontpanic #justbreathe
— Holly Marie Combs (@H_Combs) August 28, 2014
Businesses used the Instagram down-time to try to appeal to followers of the site.
If you eat Waffle Fries and don’t post on Instagram, did you really eat Waffle Fries? #instagramnotworking
— Chick-fil-A, Inc. (@ChickfilA) August 28, 2014
There was one user that asked a surprisingly insightful question.
The real question is: what would we do if Instagram, Twitter, FB, Pinterest and Gmail all crashed at the same time?? #instagramnotworking
— aSparkleFactor (@aSparkleFactor) August 28, 2014
How would a sudden loss of all social media affect our world? What do you think?
[ Image courtesy of T3 ]
