Mark Zuckerberg loses $6 billion after massive Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram outage

After being down for over six hours, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp the access to the platforms was restored globally. Mark Zuckerberg's personal fortune fell by more than $ 7 billion in a matter of hours, hitting a notch in the list of the richest people in the world after a whistleblower came forward and shut down Facebook Inc.

A sell-off saw the social media giant drop its stock by 4.9% on Monday, adding to a decline of about 15% since mid-September.

The stock slump on Monday pushed Zuckerberg's value to $ 121.6 billion, lowering it below Bill Gates' No. 5 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is down from almost $ 140 billion in a few weeks, according to the index.

On September 13, the Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of stories based on a cache of internal documents, revealing that Facebook knew about a wide range of issues with its products - such as Instagram's harm to teenage girls, their mental health and misinformation about the January 6 Capitol riots - while the problems in the public were reduced.

Reports drew the attention of government officials, and on Monday the whistleblower showed up and revealed her face.

In response, Facebook stressed that the issues facing its products, including political polarization, are complex and are not caused by technology alone.

"I think it gives people comfort to believe that there needs to be a technological or technical explanation for the issues of political polarization in the United States," Nick Clegg, Facebook vice president for global affairs, told CNN.