Meta’s WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram Face Global Outage, Users Report Issues

Meta Inc.'s platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, experienced a global outage, as reported by users on the Downdetector website. The outage disrupted services for thousands of users worldwide.

In India, Downdetector reported that 33,753 users faced issues with Instagram, while 24,287 reported problems with WhatsApp. Additionally, 5,558 users encountered issues with Facebook.

Globally, Downdetector recorded 1.07 lakh users reporting issues with Facebook. Instagram saw 71,788 users facing disruptions, and 12,623 users reported problems with WhatsApp.

Meta’s family of apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, had an average of 3.29 billion daily active users (DAU) as of September 2024, the company said in a media statement during its latest quarterly results.

Downdetector, an outage monitoring platform, compiles reports from users to detect service disruptions.

The outage potentially affected a significant portion of this user base, although the exact extent remains unclear.  Further details on the scope of the issue or the timeline for restoring services were not immediately available. Users took to other platforms to share their experiences and seek updates.

“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,” Meta said a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

December often sees an increase in reported server outages due to several contributing factors. The holiday season leads to higher online activity as users rely on platforms like social media, messaging apps, and e-commerce sites, creating significant demand on servers. Cybersecurity threats, including Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, are more frequent during this time, targeting high-traffic periods.

Companies may also schedule system maintenance or updates during the year-end, causing temporary disruptions. Additionally, severe winter weather in some regions can affect power supplies and internet connectivity, indirectly impacting server performance and user experience during this period.

On Tuesday, Microsoft faced outages where users were unable to log in to Teams and Outlook.