Meta’s Platforms Experience Technical Issues

On Tuesday, Meta’s social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, faced disruptions due to technical problems, causing inconvenience for thousands of users. The outage lasted approximately two hours before being resolved.

Around mid-morning Eastern Time, as many as 500,000 Facebook users reported difficulties logging in or accessing the site, according to Downdetector, a platform tracking such incidents. Similar issues were reported by 50,000 Instagram users and 10,000 Facebook Messenger users. However, within an hour, the number of reports began to decline.

Users encountered various issues, such as being logged out of their Facebook accounts or receiving error messages on Instagram preventing them from loading their feeds. Threads, Meta’s alternative to Elon Musk’s X, also experienced downtime, displaying a generic error message instead of the usual feed.

Meta acknowledged the problem through its status page, citing “major disruptions” affecting Facebook login and other platform areas. Spokesperson Andy Stone assured users that they were actively working to resolve the issue.

Approximately an hour and a half after reports surged, the number of affected users decreased significantly. Downdetector’s data, however, only reflects reported incidents, suggesting the actual impact could be greater.

By early afternoon, Meta confirmed the issue had been addressed. Stone expressed regret for the inconvenience caused and assured users that efforts were made to minimize disruptions swiftly.

Major outages like this are rare and often stem from benign causes, such as software updates. In 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp experienced a six-hour outage, attributed to non-malicious factors.

Despite concerns about potential cyber threats, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency clarified that there were no indications of malicious activity related to the outage. This reassurance came amidst Super Tuesday primary elections.

Recent service disruptions, such as AT&T’s prolonged network outage, highlight the vulnerability of digital services, leaving users unable to make calls or access the internet.