Facebook's COO: Response to disabled accounts was 'too slow'

By Caroline McCarthy, CNET News.com
Monday, October 19, 2009 09:12 AM

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg admitted in a talk here on last week that the company's response to a database outage that knocked out approximately 150,000 user accounts was "too slow".

"It's a very small percentage of our users, but it's a lot of people," Sandberg said of the affected users. "We want them to be able to (access Facebook) every day. We resolved it in about a week and a half. I think that was too slow."

Numerous Facebook users began complaining early this month that they could not access the social network, instead receiving a notice that their accounts were "down for maintenance". Many of them claimed that repeated requests for information from Facebook went unanswered, and clamored for better customer service and communication.

The whole affair was "a little frustrating, but it ended," Sandberg said, and chalked it up to the social network's extremely rapid growth. It now has more than 300 million active users around the world.

"We are, I promise, doing our best to scale," she continued, reiterating that all data (except for some recent updates, a statement from Facebook said last week), "and our growth means we're sometimes a little bit behind."

This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.


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Facebook's COO: Response to disabled accounts was 'too slow'
I still cannot log onto Facebook, and this is the only way I am able to keep in contact with my younger brother. I have sent numerous e-mails, and still no answer. I have appealed to the facebook disabled and appeals department and still nothing.
Posted by anonymous on Tuesday, October 20 2009 11:30 AM

Facebook's COO: Response to disabled accounts was 'too slow'
You bet their response was 'too slow.' It's still happening. Like many, many other Facebook users, I had sporadic login problems beginning over a week ago, and now for the past 3 to 4 days, all my friends have disappeared from my account, as well as my photos, wall posts, and more. I would love to see you followup with Facebook and have you press them to answer for these extended periods of downtime and errors.
Posted by anonymous on Thursday, October 22 2009 03:49 PM


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