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Tech

Facebook’s outage cost the company nearly $100 million in revenue

By
Chris Morris
Chris Morris
Former Contributing Writer
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By
Chris Morris
Chris Morris
Former Contributing Writer
Down Arrow Button Icon
October 4, 2021, 4:30 PM ET
Updated October 8, 2021, 3:15 PM ET
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Facebook’s extended downtime on Monday resulted in plenty of memes, frustrated users, and a likely productivity boost at offices across the world. At Facebook, though, it was a notable financial event.

As of 7:00 p.m. ET, when the company announced it was coming back online, Facebook saw estimated total lost revenues of roughly $99.75 million, based on Fortune estimates.

The figure is based on Facebook’s second quarter earnings, which saw revenue of $29.08 billion over a 91-day period. That works out an average of $319.6 million per day or $13.3 million per hour. (The figure does not account for peak traffic periods or days of the week.)

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger went down at approximately 11:30 a.m. ET., according to DownDetector, coming back online just after 7 p.m. ET.

For many companies, a $100 million drop in revenue over any time period would be a financial event of significant concern. For Facebook, it is (for now) a drop in the bucket that investors will likely shrug off.

The company’s stock also took a separate beating Monday, following a whistleblower report that Facebook routinely chose “profit over safety.” It closed down about 4.9%.

In a 60 Minutes interview Sunday, Frances Haugen, a former product manager at the company, revealed herself as the person who leaked a series of internal Facebook research to the Wall Street Journal and lawmakers.

Haugen alleged in the interview that Facebook prematurely deactivated certain safeguards intended to prevent the spread of misinformation and offensive content soon after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. She believes that decision was a factor in the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots, where pro-Trump advocates stormed the Capitol.

Facebook has downplayed the significance of the documents.

Update (10/4/21): This article has been updated to reflect the estimated revenue losses for the entirety of Facebook’s downtime on Monday.

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About the Author
By Chris MorrisFormer Contributing Writer

Chris Morris is a former contributing writer at Fortune, covering everything from general business news to the video game and theme park industries.

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