Meta Platforms Outage Disrupts Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Globally
Meta's services, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, experienced a significant global outage starting Friday morning. Users reported login issues and errors, with business tools also affected. Meta acknowledged the disruption, stating engineers were working on a fix, and services began recovering by midday.
Key points
- Meta platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp experienced widespread global outages starting around 9:30-10:15 AM ET on Friday.
- Users reported being logged out, unable to log in, seeing error messages like "Sorry, something went wrong," and experiencing issues with feeds and messaging.
- Outage-tracking site DownDetector saw sharp spikes in user reports, with Facebook reporting over 130,000 issues at its peak.
- Meta's VP of communications, Andy Stone, confirmed the company was aware of the issues and that engineers were working on a resolution.
- The disruption also impacted Meta's business services, including Facebook Ads Manager and WhatsApp Business Platform.
- Services began to recover unevenly by midday ET, with user complaints on DownDetector significantly decreasing.
Major social media and messaging services owned by Meta Platforms experienced a significant worldwide outage on Friday morning, impacting millions of users. Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp began exhibiting problems shortly after 9:30 AM ET.
Users reported a range of issues, including being abruptly logged out of their accounts, encountering error messages upon trying to log in, and experiencing disruptions with news feeds, messaging, and story loading. Outage tracking websites registered a substantial increase in user complaints, with Facebook alone logging tens of thousands of reports at its peak.
The disruption extended to Meta's business-oriented services, with Meta's own status pages indicating "high disruptions" across platforms like Facebook Ads Manager and the WhatsApp Business Platform, affecting advertisers and businesses relying on these tools.
Meta acknowledged the widespread problems. Andy Stone, Meta's Vice President of Communications, stated via X (formerly Twitter) that the company was aware of users having trouble accessing services and that engineers were actively working on a fix. By midday ET, reports indicated that services were beginning to recover, though the restoration was described as uneven across different regions.
Sources
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