This Just In
Instagram down in mass power outage
June 30th, 2012
12:12 PM ET

Instagram down in mass power outage

Breakfasts everywhere went undocumented on social media Saturday morning because photo-sharing site Instagram is still down after a line of powerful storms caused mass power outages across the Midwest  and Atlantic Seaboard on Friday night.

Fierce thunderstorms and high winds, some topping 80 miles per hour, whipped across Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Washington and Virginia, leaving debris, hot temperatures and no power to combat the record-breaking heat.

In addition to Instagram, Mashable and Forbes reported that on Friday night Netflix and Pinterest, powered by Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, also were down because of weather affecting the region. The majority of those accounts, and the sites themselves, appear to be up and running again.

However, on Saturday morning, people were still taking to Twitter and Facebook, complaining or poking fun at the impact of Instagram, based in northern Virginia, going dark.

Some tweets encouraged people to enjoy the blackout by leaving technology behind for the weekend, that it's OK to eat breakfast and drink coffee without sharing a photo of it with the rest of the world via social media. Other tweets joked that many people would go undocumented on Facebook or Twitter as long as Instagram was down because of the site's various photo-enhancing filters.

A similar conversation ensued when Twitter experienced a widespread outage on June 21, its largest since October 2011.

More on social media:

Photos: Our mobile addiction

When losing e-mail is like a snow day

Instagram: My addiction and affliction

Viral vigilantism, Tony Hawk style

Instagram and the rise of photo apps

Instagram wants photos to be seen beyond 10-hour window

How to behave on Instagram

Do you fly into a panic when your favorite social media site goes temporarily dark? Or does it allow you to disconnect? Let us know in the comments below.

Post by:
Filed under: Social media • Technology
soundoff (81 Responses)
1 2 3 4

Post a comment


 

CNN welcomes a lively and courteous discussion as long as you follow the Rules of Conduct set forth in our Terms of Service. Comments are not pre-screened before they post. You agree that anything you post may be used, along with your name and profile picture, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and the license you have granted pursuant to our Terms of Service.