Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp come back online after outage

Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp came back online Monday after an outage that lasted more than six hours. Facebook said the problem was caused by a networking issue.

Facebook said that because its servers were unable to communicate properly, the problems cascaded and caused outages across the system. The outage also impacted many of the company's internal systems, which Facebook said made it more difficult to diagnose and resolve the issue.

Reports on Downdetector.com suggest the outages began around 12 p.m. ET. Facebook employees were also unable to use the company's internal email on Monday, a source told CBS News.

"To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry," Facebook said on Twitter. "We've been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us."

Mike Schroepfer, the company's chief technology officer, also tweeted an apology, saying the company had been experiencing

"networking issues."

"Facebook services coming back online now — may take some time to get to 100%," he added. "To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I'm sorry."

No user data was compromised during the outage, according to Facebook.

In 2019, Facebook experienced a similar outage that lasted for several hours. The following day, the company said a "server configuration change" was to blame.

Facebook fell along with other big tech stocks on Monday, sliding nearly 5%, and Forbes reported that Mark Zuckerberg alone lost nearly $6 billion.

The outages come the morning after "60 Minutes" aired an interview with a whistleblower who said Facebook is aware of how it amplifies hate, misinformation and unrest but claimed the company hides what it knows. Facebook has denied the claims.