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          PSG's Neymar on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp outage: Zuckerberg and I had 'bad weekend'

          • Chris Wright, Toe Poke writerOct 5, 2021, 11:40 AM

          The worldwide outage of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp may have sent the social media giant's share price tumbling, but it allowed Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar to make light of his own bad day at the office.

          Facebook and the other platforms the company owns stopped working at 11:42 a.m. ET on Monday and were down for around six hours.

          "To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry," Facebook said Monday evening once the apps began working again, adding that "the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change" and that there is "no evidence that user data was compromised as a result" of the outage.

          The outage was a major boon for Twitter, which was quick to welcome an influx of traffic from around the globe as hordes of confused Facebook and Instagram users flocked to their site to find out what was happening.

          One of those people was Neymar, who was still reeling from PSG's shock loss on Sunday, slumping to a dreary 2-0 defeat at mid-table Rennes. To make matters worse, the side starting with Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar up front together failed to register a single shot on target as they were beaten at the Roazhon Park stadium.

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          However, Neymar did managed to raise a smile after hearing about Facebook's own spectacular crash. Having found that he was unable to access his other social media accounts, Neymar took to Twitter to joke that he could empathise with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's travails.

          "Just 'Zuck''s weekend and mine that went bad or someone else's too?" the 29-year-old quipped in a tweet that quickly went viral.

          Neymar wasn't the only footballer to react to the news of Facebook's multi-platform blackout either. His Brazil international teammate, Tottenham Hotspur winger Lucas Moura, used the time productively by having some quality "IRL" time with his wife Larissa, whom he actually found to be quite pleasant.

          Benfica defender Jan Vertonghen went one further by advocating a return to MSN Messenger (ask your parents!). The Belgium national team responded by digging out an old profile pic of Vertonghen and promising to send the centre-back a "nudge" (everyone was doing it, back in the day...).

          Several clubs had a little fun on social media too, with Turkish side Fenerbahce imagining the joyous scenes at Twitter HQ as all of their rivals went dark.

          Meanwhile, Bournemouth had midfielder Phillip Billing out on the pitch desperately looking for signal.

          With their tin foil hats in place, Ajax questioned the suspicious timing of the Facebook outage.

          Russian club Spartak Moscow seized the chance to cheekily stick a boot in on Barcelona while poking fun at the situation.

          Ouch.