Facebook left users without their social media fix

The error message that pops up. Photo / Facebook

There's nothing like Facebook going down to get people talking on Twitter.

Facebook is back up and running after it went down this morning, leaving its 1.49 billion users worldwide without their social media fix.

Twitter became swamped with posts using the hashtag #FacebookDown to discuss the topic and share humourous posts about the outage.

Some people regained access to Facebook at 8.50am.

Newsweek reported this was the second outage in a seven days for Facebook, the first brief outage occurred on September 24.

The outage prompted panic in many individuals, who took to Twitter to express their distress.

Comes to twitter to see if Facebook is down for errbody, yep okay, thanks. As you were...

— Richard Hills (@richardhills777) September 28, 2015

"The first thing you do when you think Facebook is down is go on Twitter and search #facebookdown", wrote Britt Whyatt - and that hashtag has quickly reached the top of New Zealand and the world's trending topics.

The first thing you do when you think Facebook is down is go on Twitter and search #facebookdown.

— Britt Box 🍁 (@shewhobakes1) September 28, 2015

Kiwi singer-songwriter Lizzie Marvelly announced that the "internet is cancelled today".

Hahaha and the #facebookdown detection sites have also crashed, probably due to overwhelming traffic. Guys, internet is cancelled for today.

— Lizzie Marvelly (@LizzieMarvelly) September 28, 2015

Nayab anticipated the flow of traffic from Facebook to Twitter in advance.
"Twitter, close your borders. Facebook refugees coming this way."

Mark Greenaway asked his followers, "can everyone just come and ring my doorbell to update me on what youre doing? If I "like" it you'll be invited in for a cuppa".

Facebook users taking to real life to share photos and pokes seemed to be a theme.

"Facebook is down. Our street is full of new mums showing pictures of their kids to total strangers..." wrote Marc Iles.

#facebookdown can everyone just come and ring my doorbell to update me on what youre doing? If I "like" it you'll be invited in for a cuppa

— Mark Greenaway (@markgreenaway) September 28, 2015

"I've just knocked on next door and shown them a picture of what I've just had for my tea !" replied Andrew Moss.

@MarcIles I've just knocked on next door and shown them a picture of what I've just had for my tea !

— Andrew (@AndrewJamesB82) September 28, 2015

Breaking News: #Facebook crash forces public to resort to traditional stalking methods. #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/2yTYnMVLPO

— Diane Elizabeth (@Diane_Elizabeth) September 28, 2015

People at facebook writing code like... #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/xywCNXzI74

— dianafalzone (@dianafalzone) September 28, 2015

hey facebook#facebookdown pic.twitter.com/rAp9pDJWg7

— Ruthyxx (@pop_ruth) September 28, 2015

HIGH ALERT!! Facebook is DOWN! Waikato CDEM is monitoring the situation. We will post as more info is available #cray pic.twitter.com/Fbfml2Q5Oq

— Waikato CivilDefence (@CivilDefenceWKT) September 28, 2015

Suddenly, Facebook returned - and Twitter rejoiced.

Thank goodness for that, I don't have to talk to my husband anymore now #facebookback

— Tina (@Tinajames21) September 28, 2015

That was a really harrowing 5 minutes for a lot of stay-at-home moms. #facebookback

— Amber Garrett (@snarkyamber) September 24, 2015

Facebook is back. #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/NnVnnIStas

— Becca Barnes (@BeccaBarnesCats) September 28, 2015

But perhaps there was an important lesson in all of this - a new study has shed light on how Facebook can make Kiwis feel bad about themselves.