At around 10 AM ET, chaos descended upon the Meta ecosystem as Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, all fell into a state of disarray, leaving countless users stranded in a digital limbo. The outage wasn’t limited to just social media; reports also emerged of users encountering login issues with their Meta Quest headsets, compounding the frustration.
On Facebook, the situation escalated as users found themselves abruptly logged out of their accounts, locked out from their digital identities. Over on Instagram, a plethora of users, including the RoboJournalist team, faced the frustration of inaccessible feeds, thwarting their attempts to engage with the platform’s content.
Acknowledging the turmoil, Meta issued a statement on its status page at 10:17 AM ET, confirming the disruption and assuring users of their engineering teams’ active efforts to restore normalcy. Andy Stone, Meta’s spokesperson, echoed this commitment in a social media post on X, vowing to expedite the resolution process.
The severity of the outage was reflected in the staggering numbers reported by DownDetector, which recorded over 579,000 outages at its peak, with Instagram registering over 91,000 reported issues. However, these figures likely understate the true extent of the disruption, given that DownDetector relies on user reports.
The timing of the outage couldn’t be more inconvenient, coinciding with Super Tuesday presidential primaries in the U.S., where 16 states and one territory are heading to the polls. The disruption poses a significant challenge for presidential campaigns reliant on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to connect with voters.
Across social media platforms, hashtags such as “#instagramdown” and “#facebookoutage” trended fervently, capturing the collective frustration of users grappling with the outage.
Meanwhile, Meta’s stocks dipped by more than 1%, reflecting investor concerns over the company’s stability amidst the crisis. At present, the stock price of META stands at $491.48, marking a decrease of $6.71, which translates to a decline of 1.35%.
Furthermore, Meta’s woes extended beyond social media, with “major disruptions” reported across essential business tools like the Meta Admin Center, Facebook login, WhatsApp Business API, and Marketing API, exacerbating the impact of the outage.
While major platform outages are rare, they’re typically attributed to benign factors such as software updates. Last year’s six-hour blackout affecting Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp was attributed to technical glitches rather than malicious activity, reassuring users.
However, the cause of this latest Facebook, Instagram and Threads outage remains shrouded in mystery, with Meta yet to provide a definitive explanation. The disruption serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of digital infrastructure, prompting concerns among consumers already on edge following recent network outages experienced by AT&T.
Adding to the tumult, Threads, Meta’s contender in the social media landscape, also succumbed to the outage, displaying error messages instead of user feeds.
Remarkably, WhatsApp emerged unscathed, functioning seamlessly amid the chaos, offering a rare glimmer of stability in a turbulent digital landscape.
