Facebook and Instagram have been restored after experiencing a global outage that lasted for approximately two hours on Tuesday. Meta, the parent company of the social media platforms, has attributed the disruption to a ‘technical issue’ which has now been resolved.
During the outage, users worldwide encountered difficulties accessing Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, encountering error messages and being unable to refresh their feeds. Meta has issued an apology to those affected and assured that the problem was addressed as swiftly as possible.
According to tracking website Downdetector, the outages impacted numerous countries, causing inconvenience to hundreds of thousands of users. The incident underscores the widespread reliance on Meta’s platforms, with Facebook boasting three billion active monthly users, and Instagram projected to reach 1.4 billion users globally later this year.
Meta’s rival to Twitter, Threads, which was launched in 2023, also experienced service disruptions during the outage. However, WhatsApp, another platform owned by Meta, remained unaffected.
This is not the first major outage experienced by Meta, as the company faced a significant disruption in 2021 when Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram were inaccessible for nearly six hours. Founder Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology for the inconvenience caused during that incident.
Despite the recent outages, Meta continues to make headlines for its initiatives and challenges. The company has formed a team to address AI-generated content ahead of the June 2024 EU elections, aiming to prevent the spread of misleading information. Additionally, Meta is facing a £3 billion legal action in London, alleging the abuse of its dominance to monetize the personal data of 45 million UK users.
As the owner of Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s actions and challenges continue to draw attention, reflecting the significant impact of social media platforms on modern society.
