A mass global outage has disrupted access to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, leaving millions of users frustrated worldwide.
The outage, which began around 1800 GMT on Wednesday, has impacted users in the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US. Outage-tracking site Downdetector reported over 22,000 issues with Facebook and 18,000 with WhatsApp.
Affected users have complained of apps not loading or feeds failing to refresh.
Meta, the parent company of these platforms, acknowledged the issue in a statement on X, saying, "We're aware that a technical issue is impacting some users' ability to access our apps. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience."
WhatsApp also assured users it was addressing the issue, adding that it is "starting to see a return to normal for most people" and expects full resolution soon.
With Facebook boasting over three billion monthly active users, Meta's platforms are some of the most widely used globally. The outage brought back memories of the company’s largest disruption in 2021, when services were down for nearly six hours, prompting an apology from founder Mark Zuckerberg.
As of now, the cause of the outage remains unclear, and Meta has not provided further updates. Users continue to await the restoration of full functionality across the platforms.