Massive Outage Hits Meta Platforms: Users Struggle to Connect

Meta Platforms, Inc. is currently addressing a widespread outage impacting millions of users trying to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. With reports indicating issues across several continents, users are expressing frustration over connectivity challenges.

Users worldwide were taken aback as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp experienced significant outages, hindering access for thousands. Meta, which owns these platforms, acknowledged the situation on social media platform X, stating, "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."

According to Downdetector, over 22,000 users encountered issues with Facebook, while more than 18,000 struggled to connect to WhatsApp. The outages appeared to kick off around 1800 GMT on Wednesday, affecting users primarily in the UK, various parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the United States.

Problems ranged from complete inability to access the apps to issues with feeds not refreshing for certain users. Meta’s suite of applications is among the world's most widely used, with Facebook alone boasting over three billion active monthly users.

Notably, the current situation brings to mind the massive outage in 2021 when Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology due to a six-hour disruption affecting Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. As users eagerly await resolution, Meta continues efforts to restore full functionality to its services.