Roommates, the answer is YES! Facebook (Meta) and Instagram went down today in a random outage. To be clear, all of Meta’s platforms weren’t working early Tuesday, including Threads, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The crash happened at about 10 a.m. ET, per DownDetector.
However, as of now, the platforms are live and kicking again. It’s unclear what exactly happened, but here’s everything we know so far.
What’s Reportedly Going On With Instagram & Facebook
According to Netblocks, an organization that tracks internet traffic, people in the U.S. weren’t the only ones scrambling to see what’s up with Facebook and Instagram. The outage affected multiple countries.
The issue reportedly had nothing to do with your personal internet connection — despite any messaging like that in the app. Netblocks reports that the “incident [is] not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering.”
The disruption was mainly related to login sessions. Some users might’ve been logged out of Facebook in particular, promoted to change their password (or not), but overall prevented from logging in.
On Facebook, the message “Unable to log in. An unexpected error occurred. Please try logging in again” likely popped up on your screens.
DownDetector shared that the most reported problems with the platforms included app (60%), feed (27%), and login (13%).
ℹ️ Note: Meta platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads are currently experiencing outages related to login sessions in multiple countries; incident not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering #FacebookDown #InstagramDown #ThreadsDown pic.twitter.com/0yR5mKCoQY
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) March 5, 2024
Social Media Reacts To Meta Outage
So, you can relax, roomies. Your Instagram and Facebook accounts were likely not hacked. This is simply a Meta issue that has since seemingly been resolved.
We’re still waiting to hear what exactly went wrong, but a spokesperson for Meta clarified on X (formerly Twitter) that the company was working to get users their access back. It looks like that was successful, though it’s unclear if that’s just for U.S. users or other impacted countries as well.
Stone’s latest X post on the matter called the issue “technical.”
Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience. https://t.co/ybyyAZNAMn
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) March 5, 2024
X is STILL hitting right now, as folks are cracking jokes and seeking answers about Facebook and Instagram previously being down!
Keep scrolling to catch a kii ’cause the memes are meme-ing!
Facebook & IG engineers rn pic.twitter.com/Gb0s7uiZ8G
— ËŁ MÜNDØ🌐x24🌌 (@TwittahBobby) March 5, 2024
Facebook , IG , & Messenger are ALL down !! 🤷🏽♂️ .. thank god Twitter doesn’t belong to Meta lol 😂 pic.twitter.com/sgwLFFq21L
— 𝐀𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥🤴🏽 (@armanivalore) March 5, 2024
Elon after finding out Facebook & IG are downpic.twitter.com/gOJP51NHes
— diablo (@starboydiablo) March 5, 2024
Facebook & IG users coming to twitter to see if instagram and Facebook are down for everyone else pic.twitter.com/Hn6cgsFZoI
— Uncle Chu (@datchughuy) March 5, 2024
Tf wrong with Facebook & IG now 🙄 pic.twitter.com/Zd8Sc2Um5U
— Nina Mosely 💋 (@BlahBlah_SuckMe) March 5, 2024
Never fear y'all…
We're working on getting Facebook & IG back up now… pic.twitter.com/iN5MPzP2Gu
— Unknown Beauty 🦄 (@2beAbeauty) March 5, 2024
zuckerberg watching people go to x to see why facebook & ig is down pic.twitter.com/GGE3ETeYrj
— Jaçkayę (@ayejackaye) March 5, 2024
When Instagram and Facebook ghost you like a haunted house, I’ll be the friendly ghost haunting your notifications pic.twitter.com/uZr6P86bKj
— Y_z_Y (@BundleOfHissss) March 5, 2024
First AT&T now Facebook & IG
Tesla owners : pic.twitter.com/lCoDZ54oMz— MaltLiquorPapi (@LowkeyBrilliant) March 5, 2024
Facebook/IG outage
Social media managers:
pic.twitter.com/gpCFev7RnO— michelle pfizer 🍉 (@arshdhillonk) March 5, 2024
Political teams that were likely scrambling today behind the outage can rest easy. It looks like Super Tuesday (today) will have its moment on those social platforms!
