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On Tuesday, a significant disruption hit Meta Platforms’ suite of social media services, affecting countless users globally. Those who found themselves abruptly logged out or unable to access their Facebook or Instagram feeds were part of a widespread outage that also impacted Facebook Messenger and Threads, all of which suffered from “failure to load” errors.
The issues started to be reporterd around 10:00 am ET, with Downdetector.com, a website that monitors online service interruptions, reporting over 700,000 complaints related to Facebook and about 100,000 for Instagram. Users of these platforms, along with the WhatsApp Business API, encountered various problems, from apps refusing to reload content to being completely shut out of their accounts.
Meta acknowledged the disruptions through spokesperson Andy Stone, who communicated via the social media platform X (previously known as Twitter), “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.” It’s of interest that Meta does not own X, it is a competing social media service.
As of the latest updates, Facebook seems to have regained some spotty functionality in some locations in the United States, though Instagram users continue to face access issues.
The outages not only led to significant inconvenience for millions but also dominated discussions on X, with many users expressing frustration over being unexpectedly logged out of their accounts on the affected Meta-owned platforms.
These outages underscore the technical challenges faced by global digital platforms and Meta’s efforts to quickly resolve such widespread service interruptions.
