On Wednesday, Meta experienced a significant outage that disrupted its key platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads, impacting users worldwide.
The technical issue began around 6:00 p.m. UK time (10:00 a.m. Pacific Time) and caused widespread access problems across all these services, according to tracking site DownDetector.
Meta acknowledged the outage through its official channels. On Instagram’s X (formerly Twitter) account, the company posted:
“Hi, we know there’s a technical issue impacting some people’s ability to access Instagram.”
Meta assured users that it was working to resolve the problem. WhatsApp similarly communicated that it was “aware of some issues” and was actively working on a solution.
Within an hour of the initial disruption, many of the platforms began to recover, with services appearing to function normally for most users. By early Thursday morning, Meta confirmed that it was “99% of the way” to resolving the issue, with only “some last checks” remaining. The company apologized for the inconvenience and reassured users that the situation was nearly fully addressed.
The outage affected a wide range of users, with DownDetector reporting over 70,000 issues related to Instagram and 105,000 related to Facebook by mid-afternoon. The problems were also noted on WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as Meta’s newer platform, Threads. While these outages were not as severe as some other high-profile tech disruptions, they still impacted millions of daily users across Meta’s platforms, which collectively boast billions of active users.
Meta operates a range of separate systems for each of its apps, though the shared technical infrastructure can sometimes result in simultaneous outages across multiple platforms. The company has previously discussed plans to make its services more interoperable, though these efforts appear to have been scaled back in recent years due to regulatory challenges.
Meta’s outage comes amid a series of other significant tech disruptions, including a November Microsoft outage that impacted its platforms for several days and a Reddit outage earlier in the year. Despite the challenges, Meta worked quickly to restore its services, with most users experiencing normal functionality within a few hours.
With input from Independent, CNN, and Forbes.
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