Election officials in multiple jurisdictions told PolitiFact the March 5 Meta outages outages did not affect voting.

It’s Election Day in November 2024. Across the U.S., voters are heading to the polls. And major social media platforms are not working.

The scenario could alarm voters and draw news organizations’ attention. But would it affect voting?

A similar incident played out March 5, when Meta platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Threads stopped working worldwide for about two hours. The outages happened on Super Tuesday, when voters in 16 states and one territory were casting their ballots in the presidential primary.

DownDetector, a website that tracks outages using methods including user-submitted reports, said that more than 500,000 Facebook outages and 79,000 Instagram outages were reported around 10:30 a.m Eastern Time.

FCC Chairwoman wants public input on protecting against vulnerabilities

WASHINGTON—In light of Russia’s attack on the Ukraine last week, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has proposed action to help protect America’s communications networks against cyberattacks. Earlier in the week, the Department of Homeland Security warned U.S. organizations at all levels that they could face cyber threats stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict; the FCC said Chairwoman Rosenworcel’ss proposal would begin an inquiry into the vulnerabilities of the internet’s global routing system.

If adopted by a vote of the full commission, the Notice of Inquiry would seek public comment on vulnerabilities threatening the security and integrity of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which the FCC says is central to the internet’s global routing system. The inquiry would also examine the impact these vulnerabilities would have on the transmission of data through email, e-commerce, bank transactions, interconnected Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and 911 calls—and how best to address these challenges.