Facebook, Instagram suffer global outage, users logged out

Millions of users worldwide were affected Friday when Meta's flagship social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, suffered a widespread outage. The disruption prevented users from accessing their accounts, with many reporting being automatically logged out and unable to log back in.

The outage impacted Facebook's main website, its mobile application, and the Messenger service. Users attempting to regain access encountered error messages, while visitors to Facebook's site saw notices indicating the company was working to resolve the issue. Reports of the widespread disruption quickly surfaced on other social media platforms, such as X, formerly Twitter, as users sought confirmation of the problem.

While Facebook and Instagram were the primary services affected, Meta's messaging app WhatsApp appeared to remain largely functional, despite sharing some underlying infrastructure. However, some users also reported experiencing difficulties accessing Instagram's website. The outage seemed to be global, with simultaneous reports emerging from numerous countries.

Downdetector, a service that tracks online disruptions, registered a significant increase in user reports concerning Facebook and its associated products shortly before the platform itself began experiencing technical difficulties. As of the time of reporting, Meta had not yet released an official statement detailing the cause of the outage. The company does not maintain a public status page for its consumer-facing platforms.