Meta outage hits Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp
Meta outage reports spiked across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp as the company said it was restoring access and gave no cause.
Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp were disrupted on Friday, with Meta saying it was bringing services back after users reported login, feed and messaging failures across its apps.
Meta communications director Andy Stone said the company knew people were having trouble accessing its services and was “working on it”. In a later update carried by Business Insider, Stone said the apps were “coming back”, although full restoration could take some time. Meta did not give a cause.
Reuters reported the disruption began around 9.20am ET, citing Downdetector data showing more than 62,000 Facebook reports and more than 8,000 Instagram reports by 10.11am ET. ZDNet said Facebook reports climbed above 80,000, with Messenger and WhatsApp also affected.
Downdetector’s figures come from user-submitted problem reports and can move quickly as services recover. Even so, the reports pointed to simultaneous problems across several Meta apps rather than one isolated service or region.
The outage was brief, but it cut across services used for messaging, commerce and customer contact. In Australia, it was most visible late Friday night and early Saturday morning, when service dashboards and social posts showed access beginning to recover.
Pip Sanderson
Reviews editor on phones, wearables, and the gear that lands in Australian shops. Reports from Melbourne.
