Meta’s flagship platforms, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, experienced a major outage on Wednesday, disrupting access for millions of users worldwide.
The outage, which began around 6 PM GMT, was reported across the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US.
During the outage, over 22,000 users reported issues with Facebook, while WhatsApp and Instagram saw more than 18,000 and 70,000 incident reports, respectively, according to Downdetector. The disruption ranged from a complete inability to access the apps to problems refreshing feeds. Meta confirmed the issue and assured users it was working on a resolution.
Services were gradually restored, with Meta stating on X: “Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who’ve been affected by the outage.” Instagram and WhatsApp also confirmed their recovery via posts on X.
This incident follows previous outages earlier this year and in October, which similarly disrupted Meta’s services. At the peak of Wednesday’s outage, over 100,000 users reported issues with Facebook, while Instagram and WhatsApp saw significant spikes in downtime reports.
Downdetector noted that the exact number of affected users may be higher than reported.
Meta’s platforms are critical communication tools for billions globally, making swift restoration essential to minimizing user disruption.
