Worldwide, 2.76 billion people on average used at least one Facebook product each day this June, according to the company’s statistics. Singh said the disruption still showed why regulators needed to supervise the internet giants more closely. People in India and other Asian countries where Facebook’s apps are popular largely slept through the outage, which occurred overnight for them. In India, Brazil and other countries, WhatsApp has become so important to the functioning of society that regulators should treat it as a “utility,” said Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director at IT for Change, a technology-focused nonprofit in Bengaluru, India. “Europeans deserve a better digital resilience via regulation, fair competition, stronger connectivity and cybersecurity.” “In the global digital space, everyone could experience a shutdown,” Thierry Breton, the European commissioner drafting new tech regulations, said on Twitter. In Brussels, the hub of the European Union - where many government workers have turned to the rival messaging service Signal to communicate amid concerns about Facebook’s reach - the outage led to a fresh round of calls for more oversight of the biggest tech platforms.

In India, Latin America and Africa, its services are essentially the internet for many people - almost a public utility, usually cheaper than a phone call and depended upon for much of the communication and commerce of daily life. In parts of the developing world, the cost of the Facebook outage was particularly acute. They are critical platforms for doing business, arranging medical care, conducting virtual classes, carrying out political campaigns, responding to emergencies and much, much more. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger have long been more than just a way to chat and share photos. The Facebook outage on Monday was a planetary-scale demonstration of how essential the company’s services have become to daily life. Today was a big reminder: Technologies are tools, not solutions.” “But that might not have been the case for hundreds of other hotlines around the world. “Because we have a field team, we were able to mitigate some of the more serious risks today’s outage presented,” said Alex Berryhill, the director of digital operations for the group, Cosas de Mujeres. And in Colombia, a nonprofit organization that uses WhatsApp to connect victims of gender-based violence to lifesaving services found its work impaired. In Turkey and Kenya, shopkeepers couldn’t sell their wares. In Mexico, politicians were cut off from their constituents. For more than five hours on Monday, the world got a taste of life without Facebook and its apps.

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