Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram (NASDAQ:META) experienced a global outage lasting more than two hours due to a technical issue, affecting hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. The disruption began around 10 a.m. ET, with users reporting difficulties accessing the platforms and being unable to log in. Despite concerns, the White House National Security Council stated that there was no indication of specific malicious cyber activity associated with the outage.
At the peak of the incident, there were over 550,000 reports of disruptions on Facebook and about 92,000 on Instagram, according to Downdetector.com. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged the issue in a post on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the company had resolved it for all affected users, but did not provide further details.
Meta’s shares experienced a 1.2% decline in afternoon trading following the outage. While Facebook and Instagram were the most affected, the outage also impacted WhatsApp and Threads, albeit to a lesser extent. Some Meta employees expressed concerns about potential layoffs when they were unable to log in to internal work systems during the outage.
The outage became a top trending topic on X, with platform owner Elon Musk making a humorous comment about Meta’s server issues. X itself has faced disruptions since Musk’s acquisition, with a notable outage in December affecting tens of thousands of users across multiple countries.
Overall, the incident highlights the widespread reliance on Meta’s platforms and the potential impact of technical issues on a global scale.
Featured Image: Unsplash
Author Faith Yakubu 
