By 
By Oluwaseyi Ajadi
A significant disruption has struck Meta’s suite of social media platforms today, with Instagram, Facebook, and Threads experiencing widespread outages, leaving millions of users unable to access their accounts or post content. The outage, which began earlier today, has sparked frustration and confusion among users worldwide.
But the social media giant has restored services for significant number of affected users on its platforms. Meta has yet to offer an official explanation for the outage.
RELATED: Meta payouts help allay metaverse and AI sector financial abyss fears
According to a report monitored by our correspondent, over 500,000 users reported being logged out unexpectedly at 11 am today on Facebook, only to be met with error messages like “Something went wrong. Please try again.”
Instagram users faced their own set of issues, with their feeds failing to refresh and an inability to post content on the platform. The outage extended to Meta’s Messaging platform and Threads, a Twitter-like app launched by the company the previous year. This resulted in users of the social interaction platforms going on X to lament the shutdown of the services.
A user on X, @CMagnumfan, expressed frustration, stating, “Anyone else having Facebook problems? I have been logged out of my account with ‘time session expired’. Tried logging back in and it won’t let me. Tried changing my password and still refusing me. So much hacking going on at the moment. So unless this is sorted I’m out of FB…”
X user @dianartemide12 simply stated, “Facebook and Instagram are down,” while @Melanie40483826 remarked, “Facebook and Instagram back up and running. Very weird who else thought they were hacked?”
Meta’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, acknowledged the ongoing issues via a post on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.” Prior to that, the Facebook Login Status page declared “Major disruptions,” with a message indicating active efforts to resolve the issues.
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind X, seized the moment to poke fun at his social media competitor, quipping on X, “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.”
This isn’t the first time Meta (formerly Facebook) has experienced such widespread outages. In October 2021, a similar incident occurred, affecting Facebook, Instagram, and other apps for approximately six hours. At that time, a company executive attributed the problems to “a faulty configuration change” in the backbone routers managing network traffic among data centers. It marked Facebook’s longest downtime since March 2019, when the service was offline for roughly 24 hours across multiple applications.
UPDATE: Meta restores services on Facebook Instagram and Threads
The recent widespread disruption of Facebook, Instagram, and Thread left users worldwide in a state of frustration and confusion. The outage, which occurred earlier today, caused significant inconvenience, with many users unable to access their accounts. Thankfully, services have now been restored, much to the relief of users, before any opportunistic trolling could take place.
Downdetector, a real-time platform monitoring website and service statuses, registered a surge in reports of the outage on both Facebook and Instagram. Concerned users flooded alternative platforms to voice their concerns and speculate about potential hacking incidents.
In midst of the chaos, users took to various platforms like X(formally Twitter) and WhatsApp to share their experiences. One user wrote on X, “Me making my annual return to X because Instagram and Facebook are down.” Another expressed frustration, saying, “Me after trying to reset my password 25 times and still can’t log back in because I think my FB is getting hacked only to realize that FB and IG are down.” Yet another user commented, “Anyone else got freaked and thought they were hacked?” and a fourth added, “Facebook and Instagram down. Meanwhile, Elon Musk: Welcome To X.” These sentiments were echoed by many, highlighting the widespread impact of the outage.
Reports for Facebook on Down Detector. Credit: Down Detector
Indeed, it didn’t take long at all for X owner Musk to weigh in on the issues, posting on his platform, “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.” Unable to help himself, the Tesla CEO followed up with another post showing the penguins from Madagascar – three of the penguins saluting one wearing a captain’s hat, each with a social media platform’s sign added on top of their chest. And it’s not hard to guess which social media app ended up as the penguin in the captain’s hat and shades.
Unable to help himself, the Tesla CEO followed up with another post showing the penguins from Madagascar – three of the penguins saluting one wearing a captain’s hat, each with a social media platform’s sign added on top of their chest. And it’s not hard to guess which social media app ended up as the penguin in the captain’s hat and shades.
Thankfully, it would appear that the storm is over, services have resumed within a couple of hours, allowing users to reconnect to their Facebook Instagram and thread accounts once again.
Threads posted on its official account on Threads: “Thanks for your patience – we know that people had difficulty accessing Threads earlier today. We’ve resolved the issue.”
