Instagram was down as it experienced a major global outage, leaving thousands of users unable to access the app and its features.
If you are doom scrolling on IG and it suddenly stopped loading earlier, you are not alone. The Facebook parent, Meta, confirmed a technical issue affecting the social network.
Instagram Down
A picture taken on October 18, 2021 in Moscow shows the US social network Instagram's logo on a tablet screen.
As per the outage tracker service Down Detector, the Instagram outage began at roughly 6 pm Eastern Time, according to the reports of users. At the peak of the issue, more than 175,000 users reported grappling with the janky service.
The Instagram parent, Meta, spokesperson, Dave Arnold, confirmed the outage to The Verge. He says, "A technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram."
The disruption lasted several minutes, leading to a flurry of online complaints from frustrated users. Many users rely heavily on the platform for business promotion and connecting with friends and family. And as such, the sudden outage of Instagram triggered concern.
While Instagram was offline, some users took to social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit, leading the #InstagramDown trend on the Musk-owned service. Users immediately noticed the inability to load Instagram feeds, post new content, or access direct messages.
To vent their frustrations and experiences, they shared posts and memes on other social networks. Variety reports that the other related topics trended on Twitter as well, such as "My Instagram" and "My IG," but "InstagramDown" persistently dominated all of them amid the global outage.
According to Reuters, the Meta parent kept mum about the affected users. However, the data from Down Detector gives us a glimpse of the scale of the outage.
In the United States (US), the issue affected roughly 100,000 users, whereas, in the United Kingdom, IG was down for more than 56,000 folks. At its peak, the Down Detector data shows the outage spread to over 180,000 users.
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IG Back Online After Global Outage
A photo taken on March 14, 2022, shows the US social network Instagram logo on a smartphone screen in Moscow. - Instagram was inaccessible in Russia on March 14 after Moscow accused its parent company Meta of allowing calls for violence against Russians, including the military, on its platforms.
Fortunately, after several hours of downtime, Instagram restored its services and is now up and running again. Users worldwide began reporting that they could again access the app and perform usual activities.
Down Detector shows that Meta fixed the technical issue around 7:30 pm ET. The Meta spokesperson confirms, "We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we're sorry for any disruption this has caused."
The official Twitter account of Instagram Comms announced the end of the outage, declaring, "Instagram is back!" IG apologized to its users "for the trouble" it might have caused them.
Meanwhile, other giant Meta-owned services like WhatsApp and Facebook remained online despite the Instagram outage.
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