Meta's facebook, instagram suffer outage, leaving users disconnected

A major outage hit Meta's Social Media platforms Facebook and Instagram on Friday, leaving millions of users unable to access the services.

Facebook users frustrated by app issues

Facebook users were plagued by widespread problems, with over 109,000 complaints reported to Downdetector within a 45-minute span. The majority of these issues centered on the app, with 56% of users citing problems accessing the platform. A further 27% were unable to log in to their accounts, and 9% experienced issues with the website.

One user from Michigan, Molly, described being locked out of her Facebook account due to two-factor authentication issues on the mobile app, while still being able to access it on her PC. Another, Theresa, from Pennsylvania, said Facebook remained down all day.

Instagram users also impacted

Instagram users also submitted complaints to Downdetector, albeit in lower numbers than Facebook. The platform saw 35 initial complaints, which jumped to 8,675 within an hour. However, by Saturday morning, the number of complaints had decreased, with only 47 reported.

Many Instagram users experienced issues with the app, with 49% citing it was down, 22% unable to log in, and 21% unable to post or publish content.

Meta eventually restored service, with Facebook back online by 11:00 AM EDT and Instagram by 12:30 PM EDT, but the company never revealed the exact cause, blaming only back-end infrastructure issues.