6-3-2024 (NEW YORK) Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram experienced a significant global outage lasting over two hours on Tuesday, impacting hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. Users reported being unable to access the platforms and experiencing log-in difficulties during the disruption, which began around 11 pm.
At the height of the outage, over 550,000 reports of disruptions for Facebook and approximately 92,000 for Instagram were recorded on outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged the technical issue in a post on X, a rival social media platform, stating that the problem had been resolved for all affected users. Stone did not provide specific details about the nature of the technical problem.
The outage prompted monitoring by the White House National Security Council, though there was no indication of specific malicious cyber activity at that time, according to a spokesperson.
Meta, whose shares experienced a 1.2% decline during the outage, has approximately 3.19 billion daily active users across its suite of apps, including WhatsApp and Threads. While the outage affected WhatsApp Business’s application programming interface, the disruptions for WhatsApp and Threads were relatively minor compared to Facebook and Instagram.
The outage also impacted Meta’s internal work systems, with some employees reporting difficulty logging in on the anonymous messaging app Blind. The situation led to concerns among employees about potential layoffs.
Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X, took a humorous dig at Meta during the outage, posting, “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.” X itself has faced disruptions since Musk’s acquisition, with a notable outage in December affecting over 77,000 users across various countries.
