Twitter users report Facebook down in Europe, Anonymous claims responsibility
Updated Oct. 12, 8:32 a.m. ET
Reports are coming in via users on Twitter that Facebook is down in Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and Portugal.
According to the website DownRightNow.com, there is "likely service disruption" on Facebook. The site gathers its information by using several methods, like official site announcement, Twitter reports or direct reports to the site. In this case, Twitter users are reporting Facebook outages on the micro blogging service.
A Twitter account associated with the hacking group Anonymous says it is responsible for the attacks on Facebook in Europe.
"I'm attacking facebook rigth now,"[sic] @AnonymousOwn3r tweeted. It's worth noting that it is the same Twitter account that claimed responsibility for taking down the domain registrar and Web hosting company GoDaddy on Sept.10. However, GoDaddy quickly released a statement and denied they were hacked, citing "internal network events that corrupted router data tables."
It's still not clear if the outages are a hoax being played out on Twitter or if they are real. There are currently no service outages reported in the United States.
Facebook says it did not get hacked and issued this statement to CBS News Thursday via email:
"Earlier today we made a change to DNS as part of a traffic optimization test, and that change resulted in some users being temporarily mis-routed. We detected and resolved the issue immediately, but a small number of users located primarily in Western Europe experienced issues accessing the site while the DNS addresses repopulated. We are now back to 100 percent, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
Here are some tweets from users who have complained of service disruptions.
Right now, Facebook is down in Sweden and Denmark.
-- Google Facts (@GoogleFacts) October 11, 2012
Facebook ist down. Apocalypse now!
-- Julian (@J_ulian) October 11, 2012
Facebook is down
-- Hot Sizzle (@_inconnu) October 11, 2012
#FacebookDown Facebook is down, except if you open it from touch.facebook.com
-- Errant breeze (@Cynicinhighheel) October 11, 2012
#Facebook DOWNby: Anonymous . @anonymousown3r
-- Anonymous Prodigi0 (@Anonymous_Prodi) October 11, 2012
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Also, @AnonymousOwn3r is an attention-seeker kid.