Meta problem! Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger ALL experienced GLOBAL outage simultaneously
Nearly all of Facebook owner Meta‘s full suite of social media sites and apps experienced reports of outages today, with New York and Los Angeles Instagram users among the hardest hit.
According to DownDetector, a website which monitors such outages, reports of problems with the platform first began to surface at about 18:30 GMT (14:30 ET).
Services across Meta appeared to be restored as of 20:00 GMT (17:00 ET) Friday.
All told, tens of thousands of outage reports came in from users across the continental United States.
But thousands also reported WhatsApp outages internationally, in countries as far-flung as Mexico, Colombia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Users mostly said they were unable to send messages, but others reported being unable to receive them. Some users even declared that they could not access the apps at all.
Users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp flocked to Twitter to report today’s outage
User reports of outages across Meta’s sites first emerged at approximately 14:30 ET across the United States. While the scope of the outages varied by country, it effected tens of thousands of social media users who logged on to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in the US
Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger went down today, with users worldwide complaining of issues. Instagram users reported facing significant trouble in New York; Los Angeles; and curiously Wichita, Kansas
A heat map of complaints within the past few hours, compiled by DownDetector, shows clusters of Instagram outages across New York; Los Angeles; and curiously Wichita, Kansas
Facebook’s parent company Meta has not revealed a cause for the problem, but the issues appears to have improved.
A heat map of user complaints within the past few hours, as compiled by DownDetector, showed clusters of reported Instagram outages, in particular, located across New York; Los Angeles; and curiously Wichita, Kansas.
One user, digital marketing strategist Jason “Stix” Buckley, reported on Twitter that ‘photo galleries have poofed’ on Facebook, suggesting that precious memories uploaded to the platform by users may have vanished during the outage.
Today’s Meta outages come four months after Facebook Messenger suffered similar outages this past February.
Final Update: Services across Meta’s apps appeared to be restored as of 20:00 GMT (17:00 ET) Friday.