Facebook forced to apologise after network crashes

Facebook was forced into an embarrassing apology today when the social network website crashed.

Millions of Facebook members who tried to log on were greeted with a white screen and a message which read: “Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on getting this fixed as soon as we can.”

The network’s users turned to Twitter to vent their frustration at the failure, leading to the hashtag “facebookdown” to trend.

One user Alyssa Deitsch tweeted: “I don’t know what to do with myself ... Should I stalk people in real life? #facebookdown”.”

Another, Pam Moore, added: “Stay calm. Life will go one without Facebook people, just as long as Twitter stays up.”

The collapse, which lasted about 15 minutes, is believed to be the fourth time this year that Facebook has suffered major technical hitches.

In a statement, Facebook said: “Earlier today we encountered an error while making an infrastructure configuration change that briefly made it difficult for people to access Facebook.

“We immediately discovered the issue and fixed it, and everyone should now be able to connect.

We apologise for the inconvenience and will thoroughly investigate this issue so we can learn from it and ensure that Facebook is there when people need it.”