Why did everyone get logged out of Facebook 2021? Users concerned for safety

Facebook logged everyone out in January 2021 leading social media users to fret over their online safety.

The social networking site seemed to kick everyone out of their accounts on Friday, January 22nd. Many people all over the world had to re-enter log-in details, which, to some, made them feel like they could be vulnerable to hacking.

Facebook logged me out randomly in 2021

If you’re one of the many Facebook users that was logged out of your account in January 2021, then you’re not alone.

According to Down Detector, the Facebook outage took place in the early hours of Saturday morning on January 23rd.

Thousands of people reported log-in issues and received a pop up reading: “Session expired, please login again”. However, it looks as though fewer people are having problems with the app as of 9 am in the UK.

At the time of writing, there aren’t any reports of other Facebook-owned apps being affected such as WhatsApp or Instagram.

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Why did Facebook log everyone out?

Facebook users all over the world, including those in the UK, US, India, Denmark and Greece were all logged out of their accounts.

While some users suggested that they weren’t keen on re-entering their log-in details for fears that Facebook could have fallen victim to a hack, a spokesperson for the app has confirmed different.

Speaking to USA TODAY, Facebook said: “We believe this was due to a configuration change and we’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”

It isn’t the first time that Facebook users have experienced some kind of outage. In 2019, the social media site took to Twitter to apologise for another server configuration change.

Twitter reacts to Facebook’s mass log-out

By the looks of Twitter, more iPhone users were logged out of Facebook than those that use an Android device. Many Tweeted using the hashtag #FacebookLogout to get answers on why the log-out took place.

Some Twitter users dubbed the log-out as “sus” and many suggested that previous hacks have taken place on Facebook. USA TODAY has stated that the site logged everyone out due to a server configuration change.

One Twitter user warned against re-entering log-in details: “I just researched and found people were logged out in 2018 and 2020 and it was bc FB was hacked. Just go to your security settings and see if anyone is logged in from a location other than the one you’re at.”

While many were taking the log-out seriously, others took the opportunity to make some new memes. Bernie Sanders’ mitten photo even made it onto the stream of Facebook’s log-out memes!