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This picture taken on January 12, 2023 in Toulouse, southwestern France shows a smartphone and a computer screen displaying the logos of the Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and their parent company Meta.
(Photo : LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images)

Users are unable to browse, post, or get in touch with friends on Meta's Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger due to their global outages.

An outage occurred around 10:45am ET, affecting various regions including the US, the UK, parts of Europe, and Asia. Other countries have also experienced the impact. DownDetector, a site that tracks online disruptions, has identified problems with the apps, websites, and users trying to access their accounts.

Meta Platforms Experiencing Major Outages

Multiple reports are pouring in from users through DownDetector, indicating that Facebook is experiencing the most alarming impact, with Messenger and Instagram following closely behind. Over 60 percent of the reports on all three platforms indicate that the apps are experiencing issues. Facebook has the highest percentage of reports at 67 percent, followed by Messenger at 61 percent, and Instagram at 66 percent.

Users encountering the issue on Facebook are receiving notifications stating that their accounts have been suspended or their sessions have expired, prompting them to log in again. Similarly, Messenger users are experiencing disruptions that show them as 'unavailable to friends,' causing communication barriers.

Meanwhile, Instagram users have encountered issues with comments, messaging, and accessing their News Feeds. Users have turned to platforms like Elon Musk's X to express their frustration, seeking solace in the company of others who are also experiencing similar issues.

The hashtags #Facebookdown and #Instagramdown are currently trending on X, although scammers have also taken advantage of the situation by offering false promises of account recovery assistance, according to Daily Mail.

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Recent Social Media Outage Sparks Concerns

The same thing that took place on March 5 and resulted in considerable commotion and rage among people all across the world has been brought to mind as a result of this most latest downtime.

Although the outage was only for two hours, it had a significant and long-lasting effect on users who rely substantially on these platforms for communication and networking.

The cause and duration of the current disruption remain unsure, similar to past instances of technical outages that have occurred without clear explanations. It is worth mentioning that this incident occurred shortly after experiencing the same interruptions on two different days in the past few weeks. These problems have raised concerns about the platforms' reliability and stability.

Going back to the past, the business Facebook lost an estimated $100 million in income due to a seven-hour outage that occurred three years ago. A blackout occurred, impacting Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The cause was identified as a faulty update that resulted in servers being disconnected from the internet. As a result, on-site repairs were required at the company's data center in Santa Clara.

Insider reports suggest that the repair process was delayed by the result of reduced staffing levels caused by pandemic measures. The delay got worse the impact of the outage, causing interruptions not just to social media services but also to important communication channels for remote-working staff, Metro reported.

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