Meta's flagship applications, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, experienced a significant global outage affecting millions of users on December 12. Reports flooded in from various regions, confirming that users struggled to load their accounts or post content.
Downdetector, a platform for tracking outages, recorded over 107,000 reports for Facebook and more than 71,000 for Instagram. Users reported seeing messages indicating that Meta was working to resolve the issue. The hashtag #instagramdown trended on X (formerly Twitter), as users flocked to the platform to share their experiences and check if others were facing similar problems.
In response to the outage, Meta acknowledged the technical issues and reassured users that they were working to restore normal service. They reported a return to normalcy after approximately three hours, with the company thanking users for their patience and confirming that services were being restored.
This incident follows a series of similar outages in the past, highlighting the ongoing challenges faced by one of the world's largest social media platforms.