FB outage drives home a toxic reality

People use FB and its subsidiaries for many reasons, ranging from casual interactions with friends, to generating income in various ways

It’s been a bad week for The Social Network. A fumble with routing Border Gateway Protocols (BGP) led to an epic multi-hour shutdown of Facebook (FB), WhatsApp and Instagram. FB also faced very damaging accusations from a whistleblower. Data scientist Frances Haugen, who quit FB in April, pointed to leaked studies to back up her assertions that FB encourages toxic content on its networks in its relentless pursuit of profits.

The BGP mix-up led to direct losses for millions, and of course, for the network itself. Ms Haugen’s revelations added another crucial set of data-points that could induce legislators and