Meta Platforms Face Widespread Outage, Affecting Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram
On Wednesday night, Meta’s major social media platforms—Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram—experienced significant outages, affecting users around the world, including in Pakistan. The issue was confirmed by Downdetector, which tracks online service disruptions, and NetBlocks, an internet monitoring service that clarified the outages were not linked to country-specific internet issues or filtering.
Problems Across Multiple Platforms
According to Downdetector, the outage began around 11:00 PM, with 2,222 reports from WhatsApp users in Pakistan by 11:04 PM. Facebook and Instagram also saw a surge in reports, with 976 and 1,217 complaints, respectively, indicating widespread disruptions. Similar issues were observed in the United States, where Facebook saw over 105,000 incident reports, Instagram had more than 70,000, and WhatsApp experienced disruptions for over 12,000 users.
Users on all three platforms reported seeing error messages such as “something went wrong,” leading many to turn to rival platform X (formerly Twitter) for updates. Meta acknowledged the issue and issued statements across its platforms, assuring users that the technical glitches were being worked on. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience,” Meta wrote on X.
Previous Outages and Ongoing Efforts to Fix the Issue
This wasn’t the first time Meta platforms have faced significant outages. Earlier this year, Facebook and Instagram users were affected by a similar technical issue that lasted for over two hours. In October, another outage occurred, but services were restored within an hour. Meta’s swift response to these disruptions suggests they are actively addressing the underlying issues to prevent further service interruptions.
The latest downtime impacted hundreds of thousands of users globally, highlighting how vital these platforms have become to daily digital communication. Meta is continuing to work on fixing the issue, and users can expect the services to return to normal shortly.
