Tech giant Facebook has blamed a faulty configuration change for the major outage that hit several of its social media platforms.

In a statement the company says the configuration had affected its internal tools and systems which had complicated attempts to resolve the problem.

It adds that there is no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of the downtime. Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were down for several hours – affecting millions of users across the globe.

The disruption to Facebook’s services came a day after a former employee Frances Haugen revealed that the company had prioritised growth over safety. She is set to testify before a US Senate sub-committee about the company’s research into Instagram’s effects on the mental health of young users.

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