Facebook Goes Down as New Features Roll Out

(AP)

/ AP

Many of Facebook's more than 550 million members found they could no longer log on to the social networking website for approximately 30 minutes earlier today starting at about 4:15 p.m. ET due to a leak of internal prototypes to the public, which caused the company to take the site down for a short time.

The outage occurred just as Facebook began debuting several new features, including redesigned brand pages, a new photo section and the ability to go back and forth between different accounts without having to log in and out, reports Mashable.

Numerous Facebook users discovered only a blank white screen when they tried to visit the website.

CenterNetworks reports that Like buttons were not loading.

Currently, Facebook is up and running with the following status message from developers:

"We are currently investigating sitewide issues that will affect Facebook Platform. We apologize for any inconvenience and will post here with updates."

Facebook also tweeted an apology on Twitter:

"Facebook is available again after being down for a brief period. We apologize for the inconvenience."

The outage was caused by the social networking website jumping the gun, with internal prototypes becoming public prematurely.

A Facebook spokesperson wrote CBS News in an e-mail, "For a brief period of time, some internal prototypes were made public to a number of people externally. As a result, we took the site down for a few minutes. It's back up, and we apologize for the inconvenience."

On Dec. 15, TIME announced Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as its Person of the Year.

[apuan777]

facebook = telling people, who don't care, about yourself because you have no one else to talk to. In Facebook world, anybody can put on the internet cover!

[formrusmcsgt]

Thank you.

[formrusmcsgt]

by voxpopulus December 17, 2010 7:00 AM EST
You are aware I hope that ignorance is less than charming.
---
I view adolescence the same way....

[formrusmcsgt]

by voxpopulus December 17, 2010 7:00 AM EST
You are aware I hope that ignorance is less than charming. Facebook is whatever you want it to be. I am in touch with aging relatives, film director friends, broadcasters, good charitable causes, friends on the other side of the earth, and many more on it. I have found interviewees and sources for my work on many topics on it. Ignorance of what you can do on it just makes you look ignorant.
----
I am not ignorant about Facebook.

I just don't practice adolescence.

[wdh3007]

They should have left it a blank white screen.

[formrusmcsgt]

Many of Facebook's more than 550 million members found they could no longer log on to the social networking website for approximately 30 minutes earlier today starting at about 4:15 p.m. ET...
----

And those arrested in adolescence couldn't say "Look at ME!", "Look what I'm doing", "Look at how many "friends" I have".......

Sheesh.

[voxpopulus]

You are aware I hope that ignorance is less than charming. Facebook is whatever you want it to be. I am in touch with aging relatives, film director friends, broadcasters, good charitable causes, friends on the other side of the earth, and many more on it. I have found interviewees and sources for my work on many topics on it. Ignorance of what you can do on it just makes you look ignorant.

[barbaram99]

I use Facebook to talk to family and friends. If a site goes down then I have other things on computer to read. I have off line things on computer as well.
When I was young I used to play a paw of solitaire and still do. There is lots of things ye can do..When I was young we did not have computer.

[Richard_Flemming]

Who's the pleb with toothpicks holding his eyes open watching facebook constantly. As soon as it goes down for 10 minutes BAM! it becomes news.

[cbsblogger]

I put Facebook in the same category as reality TV. Both offer more harm than good and big profits to a few elite.

[John944615]

That spokesman is obviously flat out lying since I still only get a white page when I try to get to the Facebook site.

[ShaneAKeys]

m.facebook.com still works, so for all the true addicts out there, there is still hope!