Facebook has said a networking issue was responsible for the global outage of its social media platforms, that included WhatsApp and Instagram. All three services had crashed across various parts of the world, with parts of North America, Europe and northern Africa being affected by the leaks.
As per DownDetector.com, problems were being experienced with the apps from 9.30pm GMT on September 3 (3am IST on September 4), which lasted for more than an hour. People reported the issue with the networking apps on Twitter, where the hashtags #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown were trending globally.
Facebook users reported issues with signing in, posting, commenting and updating their News Feeds, while those operating Messenger reported issues with loading the app.
During the outage, those who attempted to log onto Facebook were greeted with the message, “Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.”
Instagram users complained about being unable to access recent posts or messages, while those using messaging app WhatsApp said they were unable to connect to the services, and could not send/receive messages. The Facebook-owned photo-sharing app also displayed a message that read “We couldn’t connect to Instagram. Make sure you’re connected to the internet and try again.”
In a statement regarding the outage of services, Facebook spokesperson Jay Nancarrow said, “Earlier today, a networking issue caused some people to have trouble accessing or posting to various Facebook services.” Some users joked on Twitter that Facebook was playing a Labour Day prank, given that International Labour Day is celebrated annually on September 3.