A massive outage has struck Facebook and Instagram, leaving thousands of users locked out of their accounts. The issues began early in the morning, with users from across the globe rushing to social media to report their problems.
Many have taken to Twitter to vent their frustrations, with the hashtag #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown quickly trending on the platform. Users are reporting a range of issues, from being unable to log in, to being booted out of their accounts mid-use.
The issues seem to be affecting both Facebook and Instagram, which is no surprise given that both platforms are owned by the same parent company, Meta. However, the problems do not appear to be affecting other Meta-owned platforms, such as WhatsApp.
As of yet, there has been no official word from Meta on the cause of the outage, or when users can expect the issues to be resolved. The company's official status page, which is used to inform users about any planned or unplanned downtime, currently shows no issues with either platform.
This is not the first time that Facebook and Instagram have suffered from outages. In fact, the platforms have been plagued by similar issues in the past. However, given the sheer scale of this latest outage, it is likely to cause significant disruption to users around the world.
Many small businesses and shops rely on Facebook and Instagram to connect with their customers and to complete transactions. As such, any extended downtime is likely to have a significant economic impact on these businesses.
For now, users are forced to wait it out until Meta resolves the issue. While the company has not given a specific timeframe for resolution, it is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.