Facebook and Instagram down - updates: Worldwide outage leaves users unable to access Meta sites and apps

Andrew Griffin
·2 min read
2
(The Independent)

Facebook and Instagram have been hit by a worldwide outage that has left potentially millions of people unable to access their accounts.

Users found they were mysteriously logged out and not able to log back in, or could not open the app at all.

The outage appears to be global, according to tracking website Down Detector.

Follow for the latest on the ongoing outage.

Key Points

  • You have (probably) not been hacked

  • Other services show problems

  • Meta acknowledges issues

‘Session logged out'

16:00 , Andrew Griffin

You’re probably not being hacked. On Twitter/X, people are expressing concern that the technical problems are the result of a cyber attack, or them having their account stolen – which isn’t helped by the fact that Facebook shows an ominous “session logged out” warning.

That appears to be the result of the outage, and the problems with logging into Facebook that it has brought, however.

Other platforms showing problems at Down Detector

15:59 , Andrew Griffin

Some are noting that other big platforms – including YouTube and Gmail – appear to be showing issues on tracking website Down Detector.

But that’s probably because of the way Down Detector tracks outages, which is by using automated systems that look for clues on Twitter/X and elsewhere. That sometimes means that when there’s a very big outage, it can look like there are problems elsewhere too.

(This happened with the recent AT&T outage, when other carriers and platforms appeared to have problems. But it was in fact just people complaining about that outage – and finding that it meant they could not text people on other networks, or get onto online services.)

Meta business page updates to reflect outage

15:52 , Andrew Griffin

Meta doesn’t have an official status page for platforms such as Facebook, Messenger or Instagram. But it does have one for the businesses that rely on them.

Initially, that had shown no problems. Now, however, it has updated to reflect the outage.

It shows there are problems at “Meta Admin Center”, which is used for the company’s business tools. It also shows problems with its developer platform, including the Facebook Login tool and its WhatsApp and Marketing tools.

Hello and welcome...

15:47 , Andrew Griffin

... to our live coverage of a major outage at Meta.