Why is Facebook down
For many users around the world Facebook is a vital source of connectivity to their surroundings, yet for any number of reasons the ability to connect to Facebook and its central servers may be difficult to establish. The most common issues related to this are either personal connectivity issues related to your computer or your ISP or external influences regulating your availability.
For many users in China and some other more regulated countries, for instance, Facebook has been unavailable now for usage for a number of years. The change in China began back in 2007 during the establishment of what is commonly known as the “Great Firewall of China” and is designed to prevent many “undesirable” online sites that are not regulated from being accessed. If you think this might be a possibility in your own location attempt to access Facebook via a
proxy server or VPN, and if you are successful use this means to access it in the future to bypass normal blocking.
Many organizations also prevent the access of Facebook on their internal servers in order to regulate employee computer usage. Again, just as is the case with a universal firewall being established, attempt to access Facebook via a proxy server or VPN to test whether or not this is the case.
If you cannot access Facebook through any alternative means of connectivity the most likely scenario is that the servers themselves are down due to maintenance or some other technical issue. Checking the Facebook development site and other news sources for updates and status reports can help you determine if this is the case and assist you in determining when it might be available once more.
Alternatively if you cannot find any other reason why Facebook may be unresponsive check your personal security settings. Many times personal firewalls or other security devices put in place on computers can prevent access to some sites and simply return error messages when attempting to access them. Adjusting your own personal computer security settings can generally grant access to many of these sites that might not be accessible otherwise and allow you to once again use your Facebook account.