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Or people are using Facebook Auth for them. I don't really trust Down Detector, which despite the claims is really People Winging on Twitter Detector.

redserk 3y ago
Yeah, it's wild that it's now treated as an authoritative source, especially by some news organizations. It's as good as asking a neighbor what happened with a loud noise down the street. Sometimes you'll get something good, sometimes it'll be completely wrong.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  It's as good as asking a thousand neighbors if they heard anything down the street.
- colpabar 3y ago
  Downdetector is nice because it answers my question of "is anyone else having issues with this?" When it takes AWS an hour to even acknowledge "increased error rates", and tells me that everything is a-ok in the meantime, I want another perspective.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Twitter's search used to be my go-to for this - a search for "AWS down" would typically be very illuminating - but it's tough to get it to genuinely spit out the most recent tweets with a keyword these days.
- AceyMan 3y ago
  The New York Times just posted a news flash ... citing Down Detector :-P
- rimunroe 3y ago
  > Yeah, it's wild that it's now treated as an authoritative source, especially by some news organizations. > It's as good as asking a neighbor what happened with a loud noise down the street. Sometimes you'll get something good, sometimes it'll be completely wrong. Asking my neighbors if they know what some loud noise was or about some local disturbance has been extremely reliable in my experience. The one time someone gave me an explanation about something which wasn't mostly right they qualified it with something like "So-and-so said it might be such-and-such but I don't know if it's true".
  - Arainach 3y ago
    You must have an exceptional neighborhood. Everywhere I lived, here's a handy map of "actual cause" :: "what the neighbors said it was" Car exhaust :: gunshot Appliance delivery truck liftgate :: gunshot Transformer explosion :: gunshot Garbage truck :: gunshot 787 at 25000ft :: complete ruining of peace and quiet Any police activity :: probably someone robbed a bank For the record, my city has (statistically indistinguishable from 0) homicides and bank robberies and, by American standards (I know, I know) no particular issues with gun crime.
    - rimunroe 3y ago
      I can imagine it being different in a city. I'm in a fairly quiet suburban area. One time I heard a loud boom. A few hours later I saw a neighbor outside and asked if he'd heard it and if he knew what it was. He told me a house a few neighborhoods over had exploded. I was a bit skeptical of it but he turned out to be right.
      - sterlind 3y ago
        exploded? the house... exploded? like, a gas leak or something?
        Arainach 3y ago
        Drug lab is more probable than a gas leak. Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/942043/laboratory-incidents-methamphetamine-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/942043/laboratory-incide... - meth lab incidents are down to about 900/yr and have been far higher in the past (presumably because the labs have moved to things besides meth) https://rpgaspiping.com/blog/critical-safety-tips/gas-safety-natural-gas-explosions-are-too-common/ https://rpgaspiping.com/blog/critical-safety-tips/gas-safety... (286 natural gas incidents per year) - I've tried to find a more credible source for this number but keep seeing it cited in various places and have no better source, higher or lower.
        3y ago
rimunroe 3y ago
> I don't really trust Down Detector, which despite the claims is really People Winging on Twitter Detector. I'm confused. Isn't listening for spikes in complaints about outages a great way to detect them? I know for a fact some service companies monitor social media channels for this purpose (among others). I'd be surprised if that wasn't more or less standard practice. I've checked Down Detector for ISP outages in my area many times now. It's always confirmed them before my ISP did.
- Cheer2171 3y ago
  The problem is that people use FB login for other sites, and if FB login is down, many users report a problem with that other site, not with FB.
  - schrodinger 3y ago
    The point is that the “other site” _is_ down for those who use Facebook to login to it. Maybe they should have a backup password (if they site allows it, f-ing Spotify doesn’t), but it’s still effectively down for them!
- noncoml 3y ago
  The OP means there is a lot of collateral noise from people who are just tech savvy. Eg. “oh no, I can access Facebook, my internet must be down. Let me login in Down Detector to file a complaint against my ISP”
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Isn't listening for spikes in complaints about outages a great way to detect them? When there's a major ISP outage, people report problems with all the major sites. When Facebook's down, people report problems with any site that has "Login with Facebook" as an option. It's almost never actually an outage impacting all of FAANG at once.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    > When Facebook's down, people report problems with any site that has "Login with Facebook" as an option. If users log into your site with Facebook, then the login functionality of your site effectively is down when "Login with Facebook" is down. From the user's perspective, your subcontractors, including authentication subcontractors, are a problem for you to deal with and never show them. From your perspective, you could have architected your site in a way that logging in doesn't "go down" when Facebook login is down. If the user chooses "Login with Facebook" over other authentication options available, and they don't want to use other options, educating them with a good error message might help. Or you could remove the Facebook login option, if you (totally reasonably) don't want Facebook's failures to reflect poorly on you.
johnfn 3y ago
People are using Facebook Auth for YouTube?
KineticLensman 3y ago
Seems likely. TikTok and YouTube are currently working for me, while Meta platforms aren't.
tflol 3y ago
i trust Down Detector more than the (majority of) companies who are silent during outages hell, i'm surprised Down Detector hasnt been outright sued due to the graphs being an actual honest representation of availability that shitty companies cannot hide
consumer451 3y ago
> Or people are using Facebook Auth for them. Gmail is also on the list. You can't use FB auth to login to Gmail, can you?
- jordanthoms 3y ago
  Gmail was also experiencing issues: https://www.google.com/appsstatus/dashboard/incidents/shD5VvSGTxETw1YLbsCt https://www.google.com/appsstatus/dashboard/incidents/shD5Vv...
tzs 3y ago
YouTube was definitely doing something weird that doesn't seem likely connected to Facebook. A couple hours ago after watching a video I went to my home page, which usually shows recommendations based on what I've recently watched plus a few videos labeled as sponsored that have nothing to do with any of my interests. Instead everything on the home page was either a sponsored video, or a movie that was free to view with ads, or something from one of their music products. I tried from an incognito window to see if it had something to do with being logged in. Normally going incognito loses the history-based recommendations but at least recommends user uploaded content. But now it has just like my logged in home page. No user content. Just ads and videos from Google's movie and music services. Refreshing gave an error that said something went wrong. I then logged in on that page and again got something went wrong. Another refresh got a page with some user content. Another refresh was the ads and Google stuff page. A little later it seemed to clear up and now my home page is back to normal.
EscargotCult 3y ago
Their outage heatmap is also basically a population density map too. https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
baby 3y ago
It's not that, getting some issues using X

redserk 3y ago

Yeah, it's wild that it's now treated as an authoritative source, especially by some news organizations. It's as good as asking a neighbor what happened with a loud noise down the street. Sometimes you'll get something good, sometimes it'll be completely wrong.

paulddraper 3y ago
It's as good as asking a thousand neighbors if they heard anything down the street.
colpabar 3y ago
Downdetector is nice because it answers my question of "is anyone else having issues with this?" When it takes AWS an hour to even acknowledge "increased error rates", and tells me that everything is a-ok in the meantime, I want another perspective.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Twitter's search used to be my go-to for this - a search for "AWS down" would typically be very illuminating - but it's tough to get it to genuinely spit out the most recent tweets with a keyword these days.
AceyMan 3y ago
The New York Times just posted a news flash ... citing Down Detector :-P
rimunroe 3y ago
> Yeah, it's wild that it's now treated as an authoritative source, especially by some news organizations. > It's as good as asking a neighbor what happened with a loud noise down the street. Sometimes you'll get something good, sometimes it'll be completely wrong. Asking my neighbors if they know what some loud noise was or about some local disturbance has been extremely reliable in my experience. The one time someone gave me an explanation about something which wasn't mostly right they qualified it with something like "So-and-so said it might be such-and-such but I don't know if it's true".
- Arainach 3y ago
  You must have an exceptional neighborhood. Everywhere I lived, here's a handy map of "actual cause" :: "what the neighbors said it was" Car exhaust :: gunshot Appliance delivery truck liftgate :: gunshot Transformer explosion :: gunshot Garbage truck :: gunshot 787 at 25000ft :: complete ruining of peace and quiet Any police activity :: probably someone robbed a bank For the record, my city has (statistically indistinguishable from 0) homicides and bank robberies and, by American standards (I know, I know) no particular issues with gun crime.
  - rimunroe 3y ago
    I can imagine it being different in a city. I'm in a fairly quiet suburban area. One time I heard a loud boom. A few hours later I saw a neighbor outside and asked if he'd heard it and if he knew what it was. He told me a house a few neighborhoods over had exploded. I was a bit skeptical of it but he turned out to be right.
    - sterlind 3y ago
      exploded? the house... exploded? like, a gas leak or something?
      - Arainach 3y ago
        Drug lab is more probable than a gas leak. Sources: https://www.statista.com/statistics/942043/laboratory-incidents-methamphetamine-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/942043/laboratory-incide... - meth lab incidents are down to about 900/yr and have been far higher in the past (presumably because the labs have moved to things besides meth) https://rpgaspiping.com/blog/critical-safety-tips/gas-safety-natural-gas-explosions-are-too-common/ https://rpgaspiping.com/blog/critical-safety-tips/gas-safety... (286 natural gas incidents per year) - I've tried to find a more credible source for this number but keep seeing it cited in various places and have no better source, higher or lower.
        3y ago

rimunroe 3y ago

> I don't really trust Down Detector, which despite the claims is really People Winging on Twitter Detector. I'm confused. Isn't listening for spikes in complaints about outages a great way to detect them? I know for a fact some service companies monitor social media channels for this purpose (among others). I'd be surprised if that wasn't more or less standard practice. I've checked Down Detector for ISP outages in my area many times now. It's always confirmed them before my ISP did.

Cheer2171 3y ago
The problem is that people use FB login for other sites, and if FB login is down, many users report a problem with that other site, not with FB.
- schrodinger 3y ago
  The point is that the “other site” _is_ down for those who use Facebook to login to it. Maybe they should have a backup password (if they site allows it, f-ing Spotify doesn’t), but it’s still effectively down for them!
noncoml 3y ago
The OP means there is a lot of collateral noise from people who are just tech savvy. Eg. “oh no, I can access Facebook, my internet must be down. Let me login in Down Detector to file a complaint against my ISP”
ceejayoz 3y ago
> Isn't listening for spikes in complaints about outages a great way to detect them? When there's a major ISP outage, people report problems with all the major sites. When Facebook's down, people report problems with any site that has "Login with Facebook" as an option. It's almost never actually an outage impacting all of FAANG at once.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  > When Facebook's down, people report problems with any site that has "Login with Facebook" as an option. If users log into your site with Facebook, then the login functionality of your site effectively is down when "Login with Facebook" is down. From the user's perspective, your subcontractors, including authentication subcontractors, are a problem for you to deal with and never show them. From your perspective, you could have architected your site in a way that logging in doesn't "go down" when Facebook login is down. If the user chooses "Login with Facebook" over other authentication options available, and they don't want to use other options, educating them with a good error message might help. Or you could remove the Facebook login option, if you (totally reasonably) don't want Facebook's failures to reflect poorly on you.

johnfn 3y ago

People are using Facebook Auth for YouTube?

KineticLensman 3y ago

Seems likely. TikTok and YouTube are currently working for me, while Meta platforms aren't.

tflol 3y ago

i trust Down Detector more than the (majority of) companies who are silent during outages hell, i'm surprised Down Detector hasnt been outright sued due to the graphs being an actual honest representation of availability that shitty companies cannot hide

consumer451 3y ago

> Or people are using Facebook Auth for them. Gmail is also on the list. You can't use FB auth to login to Gmail, can you?

jordanthoms 3y ago
Gmail was also experiencing issues: https://www.google.com/appsstatus/dashboard/incidents/shD5VvSGTxETw1YLbsCt https://www.google.com/appsstatus/dashboard/incidents/shD5Vv...

tzs 3y ago

YouTube was definitely doing something weird that doesn't seem likely connected to Facebook. A couple hours ago after watching a video I went to my home page, which usually shows recommendations based on what I've recently watched plus a few videos labeled as sponsored that have nothing to do with any of my interests. Instead everything on the home page was either a sponsored video, or a movie that was free to view with ads, or something from one of their music products. I tried from an incognito window to see if it had something to do with being logged in. Normally going incognito loses the history-based recommendations but at least recommends user uploaded content. But now it has just like my logged in home page. No user content. Just ads and videos from Google's movie and music services. Refreshing gave an error that said something went wrong. I then logged in on that page and again got something went wrong. Another refresh got a page with some user content. Another refresh was the ads and Google stuff page. A little later it seemed to clear up and now my home page is back to normal.

EscargotCult 3y ago

Their outage heatmap is also basically a population density map too. https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/

baby 3y ago

It's not that, getting some issues using X