WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook communications teams all went to Twitter (of course) to drop “it’s not just you” messages. Just in case you were wondering how unexpected this outage was, it took quite some time before any official communications went out, and when they did, they were quite sparse. And this wasn’t some small or regional issue - this was every service, in every location, completely dead. The outages hit the websites, apps, and related services of everything in the Facebook network. PT, the services had for the most part returned to working order, albeit with some cobwebs left to shake out, leaving everyone collectively scratching their heads and wondering how an outage of this scale happened. PT, Downdetector started to show a sharp spike in reports of outages - though as we look back, users were discussing unsent messages and broken apps even earlier.Īs of 4 p.m. Well, here’s one way to start a week off on the wrong foot: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram were all down for several hours on Monday. The world's largest social media platform has been embroiled in a firestorm brought about by Haugen, with US lawmakers and The Wall Street Journal detailing how Facebook knew its products, including Instagram, were harming young girls, especially around body image. The outage comes a day after a whistleblower went on US television to reveal her identity after she leaked a trove of documents to authorities alleging the social media giant knew its products were fuelling hate and harming children's mental health.įrances Haugen, a 37-year-old data scientist from Iowa, has worked for companies including Google and Pinterest - but said in an interview with CBS news show '60 Minutes' that Facebook was 'substantially worse' than anything she had seen before. 'We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,' Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said on Twitter. We're working on it and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can.' Users trying to access Facebook in affected areas were greeted with the message: 'Something went wrong. Outage tracker Downdetector was showing outages in heavily populated areas like Washington and Paris, with problems being reported from around 1545 GMT. 'Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Instagram urged its users to bear with them.

Is messenger and whatsapp down