Facebook and Instagram users across the globe (including Nigeria) were unable to access their accounts yesterday, according to tracking website Downdetector.com.
The disruptions, which began around 10:00 AM Eastern Time (4:00 PM WAT), affected both the platforms’ apps and websites. Down detector reported over 300,000 incidents for Facebook outage and roughly 40,000 for Instagram.
“We’re aware that people are having trouble accessing our services,” acknowledged Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in a post on a rival social media platform. “We’re working on resolving this issue now.” He apologised on behalf of the tech giant without revealing much details.
The global Facebook and Instagram outage that left potentially millions unable to access their accounts was caused by an unspecified “technical issue”, Meta has said.
The outage which extended to WhatsApp Business, with Meta’s status dashboard indicating issues with its application programming interface. The effects was far reaching and impacted on many businesses for more than five hours which was distressingly frustrating which shows how the world has become totally dependent on a company like Meta who has come under many scrutinies and pressure in most recent times.
The incident which became a trending topic on a rival interactive platform, X (formerly known as Twitter), left many making mockery of the technical glitch on Meta and some expressing their frustrations over Meta interfaces.
Technology outages are not uncommon, but to have so many apps go dark from the world’s largest social media company at the same time was highly unusual. Facebook’s last significant outage was in 2019, when a technical error affected its sites for 24 hours, in a reminder that a slipup can cripple even the most powerful internet companies.
Facebook is also used to sign in to many other apps and services, leading to unexpected domino effects such as people not being able to log into shopping websites or sign into their smart TVs, thermostats and other internet-connected devices.
Instagram and Facebook are back online now.
