RAWALPINDI: As Facebook Inc. faced a nearly six-hour outage on Monday that prevented the company’s 3.5 billion users from accessing services such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, social media users, including in Pakistan, flooded to Twitter to post jibes against its rivalling platforms.
Twitter opened up the fun with a tweet saying: “hello literally everyone.”
hello literally everyone
— Twitter (@Twitter) October 4, 2021
In one of the day’s most popular tweets, video streaming company Netflix shared a meme from its new hit show “Squid Game” captioned “When Instagram & Facebook are down,” that showed a person labeled “Twitter” holding up a character on the verge of falling labeled “everyone.”
When Instagram & Facebook are down. pic.twitter.com/mVFlVOOCOC
— Netflix (@netflix) October 4, 2021
Pakistan Twitter too did what Pakistan Twitter does best – have a laugh and turn to humor to make the most of the situation, with hundreds of thousands of tweets about the outage popping up on the site overnight.
Twitter’s resident funny person @Mahobilli posted a meme of other apps giving Twitter the stink eye in the form of a grumpy cat.
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and amazon staring at Twitter pic.twitter.com/9AcYzfEMEz
— berbaad kacchay (@mahobili) October 4, 2021
With Whatsapp down, major teleco firm Jazz turned to Twitter to remind people of a service that was always reliable: “3 letters: S M S.”
3 letters: S M S
— Jazz (@jazzpk) October 4, 2021
Many tweeps also poked fun at the government, asking how it was being run since Whatsapp was down, referring to ubiquitous Pakistani jokes that politics was done mostly on social media now.
Anyone know who is running the govt since WhatsApp is down?
— Khushal Khan (@Khushal_Khattak) October 4, 2021
Others decided to poke a little fun at ‘slow’ Internet providers in Pakistan with Twitter user @Arhuml92 writing, “PTCL users still don’t know Facebook is down.”
PTCL, a telecom based in Pakistan, quickly sent out a reassuring message to its users: “WhatsApp and Facebook services are down globally and we assure you that there is no issue on our end.”
Twitter user @ashaqeens wrote in response: “PTCL really said ‘it’s not my mistake this time please stop yelling at me.”
PTCL really went “bhai is baar meri bilqul mistake nahi hai, mujhay galiyan mat dena” pic.twitter.com/LTvqsypK4K
— Osama. (@ashaqeens) October 4, 2021
Others quipped about how the outage was impacting their lives.
Islamabad police woman Amna Baig said: “Doing actual policing now that SM [social media] is down.”
Doing actual policing now that SM is down.
— Amna Baig (@amnaappi) October 4, 2021
Sports journalist Faizan Lakhani shared a popular gif of a frustrated, bored boy, saying admins of popular WhatsApp groups suddenly had nothing to do.
Admins of various WhatsApp groups without being able to flex for hours. pic.twitter.com/VYbN3Efigy
— Faizan Lakhani (@faizanlakhani) October 4, 2021
Journalist Safia Mahmood wrote, “bro whatsapp, facebook, insta down… how do i tell my fam I’m alive.”
bro whatsapp, facebook, insta down… how do i tell my fam I’m alive
— Safia (@_safiamahmood) October 4, 2021
