Mass Global Outage Affects Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp

By Staff, Agencies

Users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are facing difficulties accessing the platforms due to a global outage.

Meta, the company that owns these apps, addressed the issue on X, stating, "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."

According to outage-tracking site Downdetector, over 22,000 people reported issues with Facebook, while more than 18,000 users faced difficulties with WhatsApp.

Problems have been reported in several regions, including the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the US. The disruptions began around 1800 GMT on Wednesday, with Downdetector basing its data on user-submitted reports. The actual number of affected users may vary.

Users have encountered various issues, such as being unable to access the apps entirely or seeing feeds that won’t refresh.

WhatsApp responded to the outage, saying, "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."

Meta’s platforms are among the most widely used globally, with Facebook alone having over three billion active monthly users.

Meta's most significant outage occurred in 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, apologized after Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram services were down for nearly six hours.