A digital sigh of relief has swept the globe as Facebook, Instagram and Tinder came back online, after an outage which lasted almost an hour.
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Just after 5.20pm (AEST) on Tuesday, users attempting to access Facebook received an error message which read, "Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on it and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can."
The mobile apps for both Facebook and Twitter were also down, citing a connection error.
Tinder requires users to link their Facebook account as their login profile, which is likely why it too suffered an outage.
Users on Twitter, which was not affected by any blackout, began tweeting their shared frustration that they could not access the social media networks.
Have been dramatically reducing Facebook time & loving it. So, happy to report I didn't notice it is down ATM
#facebookdown — Kumi Taguchi (@kumitaguchi)
January 27, 2015
I'm feeling nervous Facebook and Instagram are down.... Is this the end of the world? — Laura Tunstall (@LauraTunstall9)
January 27, 2015
Since Facebook and Instagram have gone down, I was able to clean the entire house, make merienda, answer 47 of my emails, & learn french. — LA (@LAAGUINALDO)
January 27, 2015
Facebook is down. My wife says we should "talk to each other." Need advice fast.
#facebookdown — Kyle Clark (@KyleClark)
January 27, 2015
Aussieoutages.com have mapped where the outages occurred across the world.
In the second half of 2014 Facebook reported earnings of $2.91 billion.
It was estimated in September last year that Facebook loses around $22,453 every minute it is down across the globe, according to technology website TechCrunch.
By TechCrunch's 2014 calculations, in the approximate 50 minutes Facebook was down it potentially lost $1,122,650.
A Twitter account that allegedly speaks for hacker group "Lizard Squad" posted tweets suggesting that it was behind the outage, but Facebook denied in a statement that any outside party was responsible.
"This was not the result of a third-party attack but instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems," the Facebook statement said.
"Both services are back to 100 percent for everyone."
The Lizard Squad is a group of unknown hackers that has taken credit for several high-profile outages, including the attacks that took down the Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live network last month, and the Malaysia Airlines website on Monday.