Today, early morning in India, Facebook users were confused as the site was ‘Not Available’. Facebook was down in India, since 4:30 a.m. IST. For some time, mobile users were able to access the social network via mobile apps and the mobile site, m.facebook.com, but during the late morning hours, the same was not available. For the desktop version, there was no access since morning till around 11:00 a.m. IST. While many were faced with the issue via the desktop version, a handful of users still had access to Facebook on their desktops.
The error message received by most of the Firefox users, when trying to access Facebook.com read: “Server not found. Firefox can’t find the server at www.facebook.com.”
However, the frustration of most of the Indian Facebook users came to an end, with Facebook being restored in India. There is no confirmation from the social networking giant, Facebook, about the issue, but it is being assumed that the outrage was because of a DNS issue.
The issue might seem to be basically a DNS issue, but the possible non-compliance with the Indian government cannot be ignored.
A few days ago, the social network in question was reported down in Europe, and the concern then was due to technical issues. Facebook made an official statement on that matter, noting, “Today we experienced technical difficulties causing the site to be unavailable for a number of users in Europe. The issue has been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
The ‘Facebook being down’ issue in Europe saw, Twitter users complaining about it on a large scale, but the same was not seen in India. This was probably because of the rift between Twitter users and Facebook users in India. So, the Facebook issue was not really trending in any part of India.
However, there were a few suggestions noted, one of which was quite effective. According to Tweeple @Prasad Parmaj, users could have used the following tip;
Change IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as your #DNS servers to solve Facebook india access problem.
It was further noted that users could change DNS settings by going to network settings inside your browser.
Facebook seems to be having a number of issues of late all over the world, but in the Indian subcontinent, this issue seems to be the talking point for the hour.
In an unrelated development, Google and Facebook will stand on trial in India, as they failed to give their consent for censoring objectionable content in India. Wall Street Journal noted that the punishment in line could be really harsh on Facebook executives. According to WSJ, Facebook’s conviction could get their executives issued with time in jail and the company would have to face hefty fines.