New Delhi: Users of Facebook and Instagram across several countries reported widespread disruptions on Friday evening, with thousands complaining that the Meta-owned platforms were either not loading properly or failing to refresh content.
The outage appeared to begin around 7 pm IST, according to user reports and data from outage-tracking platform Downdetector, which recorded a sharp surge in complaints.
The disruption was not limited to any one region, with users from multiple countries reporting similar issues at roughly the same time.
In India, users across several cities said they were unable to access Facebook and Instagram normally.
Many reported that feeds were not loading, while others said the apps were failing to refresh content.
Some users also experienced login-related problems and difficulties accessing specific features on the platforms.
As the services encountered issues, many users turned to other social media platforms, including X, to check whether the problem was widespread.
Posts from affected users suggested that the disruption was impacting both Facebook and Instagram, while some also reported problems with Facebook Messenger.
The outage appeared to affect users differently. While some said the websites remained accessible, others reported that the mobile applications were unable to load new content or update timelines.
The varying nature of the disruption led to speculation that the issue could be linked to Meta’s backend systems rather than users’ internet connections or devices.
Downdetector showed more than 100,000 reports related to Facebook alone, highlighting the scale of the outage.
Instagram also witnessed a significant number of complaints, with reports continuing to rise as more users flagged issues.
Meta had not issued an official statement on the cause of the disruption at the time of writing.
The company also did not provide a timeline for when normal services would be restored.
While users attempted common troubleshooting measures such as restarting apps, switching internet networks and checking for software updates, reports suggested that the issue was likely occurring on Meta’s side, limiting the effectiveness of such steps.
(IANS)
