Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) stock closed 4.89% lower on the Nasdaq on Monday as the Facebook and Instagram social media platforms and Whatsapp all dropped offline for several hours.
Media reports meanwhile noted further computer problems at Facebook with company email and even the employee ID security passes for Facebook offices also being down.
Facebook services were down for around six hours, before they began coming back online.
The company, in a blog post, blamed ‘configuration changes’ on its network infrastructure for the problem and added that it has no evidence that user data was compromised through the downtime.
"We want to make clear at this time we believe the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change,” Facebook said.
It added: “People and businesses around the world rely on us everyday to stay connected.
“We understand the impact outages like these have on people’s lives, and our responsibility to keep people informed about disruptions to our services.
“We apologize to all those affected, and we’re working to understand more about what happened today so we can continue to make our infrastructure more resilient."
On Nasdaq, Facebook shares closed at US$326.23 down 4.89%.
The share price drop would mean that Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth, comprising mostly of his Facebook holdings, was dented to the tune of around US$6bn.
With a net worth of US$122bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zuckerberg is ranked as the fifth most valuable – behind Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk.