Meta’s social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, are back online following a two-hour outage on Tuesday.
Facebook and Threads were notably affected, with both apps failing to load around 3 pm. During the outage, Instagram feeds weren’t refreshing for some users, while others experienced difficulties accessing the app. Many Facebook users were unable to log in.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone addressed the technical issue in a post on social media site X, stating, “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
The hashtags “#instagramdown” and “#facebookoutage” trended on X Tuesday morning, with Meta’s shares experiencing a more than 1% decrease.
In addition to the social media platforms, Meta faced “major disruptions” across its Meta Admin Center, Facebook and Instagram Shops, and WhatsApp Business API, according to the company’s website tracking the status of business products.
Google’s YouTube also confirmed user problems, including loading issues, a blank homepage, and errors with YouTube Shorts. Some Gmail users reported delays in email delivery, although it remains unclear if these issues are related to Meta’s outages.
These service disruptions follow a major outage in 2021 when Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for over six hours. Facebook, now Meta, attributed the 2021 outage to “configuration changes on backbone routers.”
