The world stopped for over six hours—well the online world did. If you weren’t aware, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all stopped working on Monday due to an outage. So what happened and are the platforms working normally now? Here’s what sent the world into a frenzy.

Starting around 11:35 a.m. ET, users weren’t able to post comments or refresh their feeds while Facebook and Instagram displayed error messages. On WhatsApp, users couldn’t send or recieve messages or phone calls. By 6 p.m. ET, some of the services became available again.

This was the longest downtime for Facebook since March 2019 when the service was down for around 24 hours across many platforms.

“To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry,” Facebook tweeted. “We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”

The blackout impacted Twitter, with users flocking to, which caused stress on the servers.“Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter. We prepare for these moments, but today things didn’t go exactly as planned. Some of you may have had an issue seeing replies and DMs as a result. This has been fixed. Sorry about that!”, the tweet read.

“Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are coming back online now,” he wrote. “Sorry for the disruption today — I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page.

We’re just glad all are back and running. Almost seven hours without social media was a real nightmare.

The post Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Experience Outage, Finally Back Online appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Facebook and Instagram have been testing an option to hide like counts on posts for quite some time, and they finally made things official. These social media platforms are leaving it up to you to decide if you want to share your likes with the world, in an attempt to reduce the pressure on users.

In an official statement announcing this shift, Instagram’s representatives explained they tasted if hiding like counts to might depressurize people’s experience, and came to different results. “What we heard from people and experts was that not seeing like counts was beneficial for some, and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense for what’s trending or popular, so we’re giving you the choice.”

Each Instagram and Facebook user can now decide what works for them and choose if they want to see the number of likes on their own and other users’ posts. Instagram is hoping this innovation will put focus on the content, empower people, build self-awareness and shape a more positive experience.

If you want to hide your likes, simply head to Settings and look for the new Posts section. If you tick this option, it will apply to all the posts on your feed, but you can also opt for hiding likes on individual posts, by selecting the three dots in the upper right corner above a post and finding the option “hide like count”.

The post Facebook and Instagram Now Allow You To Hide Like Counts appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

You may remember back in May when everyone started using avatars on their Facebook, but over the past few months, we haven’t seen them appear on our pages until a couple of days ago when everyone started using them again. When they first came out, they were a way for people to express themselves through cartoon avatars, which was much more advanced than the emojis available on Facebook. So why are we seeing them emerge once again?

A couple of days ago, Facebook launched the avatar feature “Avatars for Africa,” which are more specialized avatars. It’s an expansion of the current avatar system that allows users who aren’t based in America or Europe to create identities that fit them. You can customize the avatar to look like you as well as changing the expression, clothing, and background. You can use the Facebook Avatar feature as a profile picture or to send stickers to others.

“Facebook is home to some of your most personal content and we want to allow people to share and react to that content in the most personalised way possible,” Nunu Ntshingila, Regional Director of Facebook Africa sid. “We’re excited to give people more options to convey their identity on Facebook, allowing them to share in a more personal, light-hearted way.”

To use the feature, make sure you have the latest version of Facebook and then log into your account. At the top right corner there are three lines, click on them and then scroll down to the “See More.” Click on “Avatar.” Then you will start creating your avatar by selecting your skin tone, hairstyle, face shape, eye shape, eyewear, body shape, and other body features. Once you’ve completed the avatar, click “Done” at the top right corner. Then click “Next” and you will see your finished avatar.

The post Facebook’s New Avatars Have Launched and Everyone’s Using Them appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Have you heard about mindfluencing? Social media influencers have never had as much power as they do today and many of them are realizing the importance of sending the right message to their followers.

Mindful influencing, also known as mindfluencing, is a movement run by bloggers who want to motivate their followers to share a positive attitude on social media. Social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are often used for negative, non-constructive communication and this is what they are trying to change.

It’s already well-known that lives of people we see on social media don’t look anything like that in reality. In just ten minutes, using a few simple tools, anyone can adjust the photos and write a wise caption that “reflects” their “perfect” life. The followers can never know what’s behind the staged photo they see and they are left to compare their real lives with heavily airbrushed lives of others.

This has devastating consequences. Social media users often suffer from lack of self esteem, anxiety, panic attacks, and negative thoughts about themselves. Could #mindfluencing be the solution to these problems?

The post #Mindfulencing is the Latest Social Media Trend appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Facebook is currently testing its new product — an online dating app that’s called Dating. It’s currently available for users aged 18 and above living in Colombia.​

While Facebook is pretty late to the dating app game, they have a big advantage compared to the competitors: millions of people already have Facebook accounts. Dating won’t require downloading a new app — everything can be done through the original Facebook app.

The users will, however, create separate profiles for Dating service. This means that the data from the mail Facebook profile won’t be automatically copied onto a new profile, but the user can decide what to reveal.

Would you try Dating?

The post Facebook is Currently Testing Their New Dating Service appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Instagram and Facebook have announced new updates, which will monitor how much time you really spend online.

The feature will show how much time you have spent on the social media site that week. You will also be able to use the ‘daily reminder’ tool to set up a time limit for yourself to spend on Facebook. This can be changed or cancelled at any time. Push notifications can also be turned off for certain time periods.

The aim of the new tools is to help people maintain control over how much time they spend online. Research suggests that spending too much time on social media can increase the likelihood of suffering from mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, in young people.

“We want the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram to be intentional, positive and inspiring,” Ameet Ranadive at Instagram, and David Ginsberg, the director of research at Facebook, said in a statement.

“Our hope is that these tools give people more control over the time they spend on our platforms and also foster conversations between parents and teens about the online habits that are right for them.”

The post Facebook and Instagram Introduce New Tools So You Could Monitor How Much Time You Spend Online appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

The world stopped for over six hours—well the online world did. If you weren’t aware, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all stopped working on Monday due to an outage. So what happened and are the platforms working normally now? Here’s what sent the world into a frenzy.

Starting around 11:35 a.m. ET, users weren’t able to post comments or refresh their feeds while Facebook and Instagram displayed error messages. On WhatsApp, users couldn’t send or recieve messages or phone calls. By 6 p.m. ET, some of the services became available again.

This was the longest downtime for Facebook since March 2019 when the service was down for around 24 hours across many platforms.

“To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry,” Facebook tweeted. “We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”

The blackout impacted Twitter, with users flocking to, which caused stress on the servers.“Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter. We prepare for these moments, but today things didn’t go exactly as planned. Some of you may have had an issue seeing replies and DMs as a result. This has been fixed. Sorry about that!”, the tweet read.

“Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are coming back online now,” he wrote. “Sorry for the disruption today — I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page.

We’re just glad all are back and running. Almost seven hours without social media was a real nightmare.

The post Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Experience Outage, Finally Back Online appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Facebook and Instagram have been testing an option to hide like counts on posts for quite some time, and they finally made things official. These social media platforms are leaving it up to you to decide if you want to share your likes with the world, in an attempt to reduce the pressure on users.

In an official statement announcing this shift, Instagram’s representatives explained they tasted if hiding like counts to might depressurize people’s experience, and came to different results. “What we heard from people and experts was that not seeing like counts was beneficial for some, and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense for what’s trending or popular, so we’re giving you the choice.”

Each Instagram and Facebook user can now decide what works for them and choose if they want to see the number of likes on their own and other users’ posts. Instagram is hoping this innovation will put focus on the content, empower people, build self-awareness and shape a more positive experience.

If you want to hide your likes, simply head to Settings and look for the new Posts section. If you tick this option, it will apply to all the posts on your feed, but you can also opt for hiding likes on individual posts, by selecting the three dots in the upper right corner above a post and finding the option “hide like count”.

The post Facebook and Instagram Now Allow You To Hide Like Counts appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

You may remember back in May when everyone started using avatars on their Facebook, but over the past few months, we haven’t seen them appear on our pages until a couple of days ago when everyone started using them again. When they first came out, they were a way for people to express themselves through cartoon avatars, which was much more advanced than the emojis available on Facebook. So why are we seeing them emerge once again?

A couple of days ago, Facebook launched the avatar feature “Avatars for Africa,” which are more specialized avatars. It’s an expansion of the current avatar system that allows users who aren’t based in America or Europe to create identities that fit them. You can customize the avatar to look like you as well as changing the expression, clothing, and background. You can use the Facebook Avatar feature as a profile picture or to send stickers to others.

“Facebook is home to some of your most personal content and we want to allow people to share and react to that content in the most personalised way possible,” Nunu Ntshingila, Regional Director of Facebook Africa sid. “We’re excited to give people more options to convey their identity on Facebook, allowing them to share in a more personal, light-hearted way.”

To use the feature, make sure you have the latest version of Facebook and then log into your account. At the top right corner there are three lines, click on them and then scroll down to the “See More.” Click on “Avatar.” Then you will start creating your avatar by selecting your skin tone, hairstyle, face shape, eye shape, eyewear, body shape, and other body features. Once you’ve completed the avatar, click “Done” at the top right corner. Then click “Next” and you will see your finished avatar.

The post Facebook’s New Avatars Have Launched and Everyone’s Using Them appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Have you heard about mindfluencing? Social media influencers have never had as much power as they do today and many of them are realizing the importance of sending the right message to their followers.

Mindful influencing, also known as mindfluencing, is a movement run by bloggers who want to motivate their followers to share a positive attitude on social media. Social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest are often used for negative, non-constructive communication and this is what they are trying to change.

It’s already well-known that lives of people we see on social media don’t look anything like that in reality. In just ten minutes, using a few simple tools, anyone can adjust the photos and write a wise caption that “reflects” their “perfect” life. The followers can never know what’s behind the staged photo they see and they are left to compare their real lives with heavily airbrushed lives of others.

This has devastating consequences. Social media users often suffer from lack of self esteem, anxiety, panic attacks, and negative thoughts about themselves. Could #mindfluencing be the solution to these problems?

The post #Mindfulencing is the Latest Social Media Trend appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Facebook is currently testing its new product — an online dating app that’s called Dating. It’s currently available for users aged 18 and above living in Colombia.​

While Facebook is pretty late to the dating app game, they have a big advantage compared to the competitors: millions of people already have Facebook accounts. Dating won’t require downloading a new app — everything can be done through the original Facebook app.

The users will, however, create separate profiles for Dating service. This means that the data from the mail Facebook profile won’t be automatically copied onto a new profile, but the user can decide what to reveal.

Would you try Dating?

The post Facebook is Currently Testing Their New Dating Service appeared first on toppoptoday.com.

Instagram and Facebook have announced new updates, which will monitor how much time you really spend online.

The feature will show how much time you have spent on the social media site that week. You will also be able to use the ‘daily reminder’ tool to set up a time limit for yourself to spend on Facebook. This can be changed or cancelled at any time. Push notifications can also be turned off for certain time periods.

The aim of the new tools is to help people maintain control over how much time they spend online. Research suggests that spending too much time on social media can increase the likelihood of suffering from mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, in young people.

“We want the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram to be intentional, positive and inspiring,” Ameet Ranadive at Instagram, and David Ginsberg, the director of research at Facebook, said in a statement.

“Our hope is that these tools give people more control over the time they spend on our platforms and also foster conversations between parents and teens about the online habits that are right for them.”

The post Facebook and Instagram Introduce New Tools So You Could Monitor How Much Time You Spend Online appeared first on toppoptoday.com.