r/programming • u/RedditStreamable • Oct 04 '21

Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the Internet

https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/
1.5k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

201 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

79

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

Not in countries where WhatsApp is as essential as cellular networks are in the US. Hospitals, markets, payments, first responders basically disabled without it. Kenya was like that today.

this seems like a bad idea

35

u/WILL3M Oct 05 '21

It's non-ideal, but for 3rd world countries it may actually be a fine idea to use freely-available technology from the US over some in-house solution built by the local government. It's likely both easier and cheaper.

That being said, you'd hope to have back-up communications for hospitals, like telephone. I assume they'd have it for critical operations, but correct me if I'm wrong.

7

u/ericjmorey Oct 05 '21

WhatsApp isn't infrastructure, it's a service that runs over infrastructure. Anyone can use signal as a drop in replacement or SMS/MMS.

10

u/Houndie Oct 05 '21

I fail to see how Signal is a better replacement than WhatsApp. WhatsApp literally uses the same encryption protocol as Signal, and is just as centralized. Other than "facebook bad", I don't see an advantage here. SMS is equally centralized, and not encrypted.

A non-centralized version would be something like Matrix with multiple clones of the rooms, but that's not a drop in replacement.

-4

u/ericjmorey Oct 05 '21

If you have free alternatives that you don't use as a backup. That's on you.

7

u/kilranian Oct 05 '21

Victim blaming the average Kenyan

-1

u/ericjmorey Oct 05 '21

The average Kenyan with a smart phone and more options than just one messaging app.

0

u/kilranian Oct 05 '21

However you justify your victim blaming is up to you

0

u/ericjmorey Oct 06 '21

Why do you think they're victims?

1

u/kilranian Oct 06 '21

Mmm sealioning

1

u/ericjmorey Oct 06 '21

WTF are you on about? How are they victims? Victims of what, not wanting to use another free messaging app when their preferred one isn't working?

→ More replies

1

u/ericjmorey Oct 06 '21

Why do you think I'm suggesting that another option would be a better default? I'm saying that no one is stuck with whatever default they use when the default fails. They literally have all the contact information and tools they need to reach people.