Facebook and Instagram have stopped working for users in the US, UK, Europe, and parts of Asia. Thousands of social media users have reported they’re having trouble with Messenger, where they are sending messages but not getting replies. Others have said they can’t see stories or search on the apps.
People are also having issues with Instagram’s comments and news feeds. DownDetector, which checks when websites and apps have problems, saw lots of reports about Instagram and Facebook today, as shown in this map, showing where in the United States the bulk of outage reports have come from, with widespread reports in major US cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Seattle.
Many social media users vented their frustrations online. One person said: “Facebook down again.”, reports the Mirror.
If you can’t see the map below, click here.
Another wrote on X: “Chill guys Facebook is down again.” Someone else posted: “Ugh SERIOUSLY? ! AGAIN! ! ! no wonder my videos dont wanna play! “.
Another person said: “My notifications gone.” And someone on X mentioned: “Since Facebook and Instagram are currently down, I will just stay here for the meantime.”
There were complaints like: “why instagram always wanna be down when i wanna get on it.” And questions like: “Is facebook really down again ? Or is it just me ? “.
Instagram and Facebook were again left frustrated just two weeks after a previous problem. Many vented their anger on social media, questioning why the tech giants couldn’t fix their servers despite their vast wealth.
Meta’s Communications Director Andy Stone took to X to acknowledge the issue on March 5: “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.”
In a later update, he said: “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 apologise for any inconvenience.”
Meta shared a separate statement: “We know some people were having trouble accessing our apps earlier. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thank you for your patience while our teams worked quickly to resolve! “One of the first to spot the problem said: “Facebook is Down. Can’t access my account,” and another person said: “Facebook Down/ Instagram Down everything in Meta down.”
Elon Musk, who owns company X, made a cheeky comment on Tuesday afternoon. He wrote: “If you are reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.”
The last big problem like this was in 2021 on October 5. That day, account holders couldn’t use the apps for hours. All four apps from Meta stopped working for six hours because of a problem with the Border Gateway Protocol.
Matthew Green, an expert on cyber security, thinks the trouble might be bigger than just Meta. It could be a problem with a cloud service that many companies use.
He told the Associated Press “There are a number of services having trouble with at least parts of their systems, particularly the ability to log into websites. This may indicate a common cause, like a failure at a major cloud services provider. At the moment nobody knows exactly what’s happening.”
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