Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are coming back online after experiencing a major outage on Monday, the social media giant confirmed roughly six hours later.
The latest: "To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry," Facebook tweeted on Monday evening. "We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us."
Facebook asked a federal court Monday to dismiss the latest antitrust complaint against it from the Federal Trade Commission, arguing FTC chair Lina Khan shouldn't have been able to cast the deciding vote to bring the case.
The big picture: A previous version of this suit was thrown out by a federal judge in June, and the FTC returned with a revised version in August that Facebook is now responding to.
Why it matters: Microsoft's operating system launches aren't what they were back in the days when people lined up outside of retail stores at midnight. But this is still the most significant update in years and comes as the PC industry is getting a pandemic-fueled resurgence.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen's "60 Minutes" interview Sunday put a name and a face on charges that Facebook has known about and failed to counter harms caused by its platform.
Why it matters: The complaints were largely familiar, but they gained specificity and depth from Haugen's standing as someone who formerly worked for Facebook on its civic integrity team — and who still says she "loves" the company.
The whistleblower who leaked thousands of internal Facebook documents to the Wall Street Journal revealed herself Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes" as Frances Haugen, a former lead product manager on the company's civic misinformation team.
Why it matters: On the show, Haugen said she realized this year that she needed to take tens of thousands of pages of documents so that "no one can question that this is real."
Facebook executive Nick Clegg said in a defiant internal memo that a former employee will accuse the company of contributing to the U.S. Capitol riot, the New York Times first reported Saturday.
Why it matters: Facebook appears to be launching a pre-emptive strike against the whistleblower with the memo, also shared with Axios, ahead of her CBS "60 Minutes" interview airing Sunday and her scheduled appearance at a Senate hearing Tuesday.
