Thousands of users worldwide were locked out of their Facebook and Instagram accounts on Tuesday afternoon, as a widespread outage hit Meta's social media platforms. The issue, first reported around 3pm UK time, caused Facebook users to be logged out and told their passwords were incorrect, while Instagram displayed an error message saying it 'couldn't load' their feed.
According to outage tracking website Downdetector, over 300,000 reports were logged for Facebook and more than 120,000 for Instagram between 3.20pm and 4pm. Some users also reported problems accessing WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta. The hashtag #facebookdown trended on X, formerly Twitter, as users vented frustrations and concerns.
Meta acknowledged the issue, with communications head Andy Stone posting on X: 'We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services.' The company later issued a full statement apologising for the outage, stating: 'Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services.' Meta's business status page described 'major disruptions' to several services.
By late afternoon, some users reported regaining access to Facebook, but Instagram continued to suffer from faults preventing posts and profiles from loading. The outage also prompted light-hearted responses, with airline Ryanair posting a joke on X about the situation.
