In a shocking turn of events, millions of users across the globe experienced frustration on Wednesday evening as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp went offline due to a widespread technical outage.
The disruptions began around 1800 GMT, affecting users in the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US.
Downdetector, an outage-tracking platform, reported over 22,000 complaints about Facebook and 18,000 about WhatsApp.
Many users reported being unable to access the apps entirely, while others experienced issues like non-refreshing feeds.
Meta, the parent company of the platforms, acknowledged the disruption on X (formerly Twitter), saying:
“We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps.
We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.”
WhatsApp also assured users that a solution was underway and that services were gradually returning to normal.
“We’re aware of some issues accessing WhatsApp. We’re actively working on a solution and starting to see a return to normal for most people. We expect things to be back to normal shortly,” the messaging platform stated.
Meta’s platforms are among the most widely used worldwide, with Facebook alone boasting over three billion active monthly users.
This latest outage, while frustrating for millions, falls short of the company’s most severe disruption in 2021 when all Meta-owned platforms were down for nearly six hours.
As the tech giant works to restore full functionality, users are left grappling with the impact of these outages on personal, social, and business activities.