On Tuesday, March 5, 2024, at 10 a.m. ET, Facebook, and Instagram users experienced a global social media outage lasting nearly six hours. The outage affected hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, who reported being unable to log in or access their social media accounts. Some users also reported troubles with WhatsApp and Google services like Gmail and YouTube.
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, stated that the outage was caused by an internal technical issue that also impacted workers' work credentials and email. The business apologized for the inconvenience and stated that it is striving to restore services as soon as possible.
The outage was one of the top trending topics on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, where he mocked Meta with a post that read: "If you're reading this post, it's because our servers are working." X has seen many problems since Musk purchased the facility in October 2022.
The outage was one of the worst in Meta's history, rivaling the one that happened in October 2021, when a configuration issue in a network protocol caused the company's servers to be removed from the internet for about six hours. That outage also impacted Meta's other applications, such as WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as third-party services that used Meta's infrastructure, like Spotify and Tinder.
The outage emphasized the reliance of millions of users and companies on Meta's services, as well as the dangers of concentrating the internet on a few platforms. Some users were frustrated and anxious about the downtime, while others used the chance to disconnect from social media or explore alternate sites.
The outage has sparked concerns about Meta's capacity to manage increasing demand and complexity in its services, particularly as the firm expands into new sectors like as virtual and augmented reality, bitcoin, and the metaverse. Meta has been under increased attention and criticism from regulators, politicians, activists, and users for its influence on privacy, democracy, mental health, and the environment.
Meta stated that it was examining the underlying cause of the outage and will provide more information soon. The organization also expressed appreciation for the patience and support of its customers and partners.
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