Instagram and Facebook Face Worldwide Outage, Users Flock to X
Thousands of users reported issues accessing Meta's platforms globally, with problems beginning mid-afternoon BST.
Instagram and Facebook experienced a widespread outage on Tuesday afternoon, preventing thousands of users worldwide from accessing Meta's popular social media applications. The disruptions reportedly began around 2:36 p.m. British Summer Time, with Down Detector logging over 3,000 user-reported problems within a short period.
For Instagram, users reported difficulties primarily with the app, with a significant percentage unable to log in or experiencing server connection issues. Some users attempting to access Instagram on desktop encountered an error message stating, "Sorry, this page isn't available." On mobile devices, while feeds could sometimes load, direct messages failed to send and Stories would not display.
Similar issues affected Facebook, with Down Detector registering 21,860 outage reports in just 30 minutes. Over half of these reports concerned problems with the Facebook app, while a third indicated login difficulties. The outage also extended to Facebook Messenger, which saw 8,694 reports, with users struggling to log in, use the app, or send and receive messages.
Social media users widely turned to X, formerly Twitter, to confirm whether the outages were widespread or isolated. Many expressed concern about potential account hacking, while others used the platform to joke about the situation. One user noted the irony of using X to check if Facebook was down, stating, "the best way to see if Facebook is really down... is to search 'Facebook' on Twitter."
While Meta had not released an official statement regarding the outage on its public X or Threads accounts at the time of reporting, the company was contacted for more information. This incident follows a similar major outage affecting Meta services in March.
Experts suggest such widespread outages are often caused by technical errors, such as issues with the Domain Name System (DNS). Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET, explained that DNS, which translates web addresses into numerical IP addresses, can be a "single point of failure" when it malfunctions. He noted that while there is no evidence of cybercriminal activity, such events highlight the risks of relying heavily on a single platform for customer engagement.