Highlights
- Global outage impacts Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, leaving users stranded.
- Outage attributed to a technical issue, with Meta confirming the situation via social media.
- Services resumed after approximately two hours, though some users reported ongoing issues.
- Outage raises questions about the reliability of major social networks during critical times.
Meta experienced a major outage affecting its prominent social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
The technical glitch left users worldwide unable to access these services, causing widespread inconvenience.
As of the latest updates, the services have been restored, but the incident has sparked discussions on the reliability and technical robustness of major social networks.
The Outage Explained
We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) March 5, 2024
The difficulties began after 10 am ET on a Tuesday, with users encountering error messages suggesting something had gone wrong or, in Facebook’s case, redirecting to a logged-out landing page with no possibility of signing back in, even with the correct credentials.
Meta acknowledged the problem at 12:19 pm ET, attributing it to a “technical” issue without providing further specifics.
Meta is down … 🤣 pic.twitter.com/AMEnUXk0B9
— حسن سجواني 🇦🇪 Hassan Sajwani (@HSajwanization) March 5, 2024
Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, confirmed the outage via a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), assuring users that the company was actively working to resolve the issue.
This outage is particularly notable due to the infrequency of such widespread service interruptions from Meta, a company that prides itself on extensive network infrastructure and redundancy systems designed to prevent such occurrences.
BIG BREAKING 🚨
META uses X to announce that #Facebook and #INSTAGRAM are down worldwide. pic.twitter.com/ZuE2vIdjJR
— BITCOINLFG® (@bitcoinlfgo) March 5, 2024
The timing was also critical, coinciding with Super Tuesday, an important day for primary elections in several US states.
With Meta already embroiled in previous political scandals, the specific timing of the outage has raised concerns about the potential impact on voter outreach and information dissemination efforts.
🚨 JUST IN: Mental health has improved significantly worldwide after Meta servers reported down.
More developing.
— Elon Musk (Parody) (@ElonMuskAOC) March 5, 2024
Recovery and Speculations
Services began to gradually return around two hours after the outage was first reported.
Network intelligence company ThousandEyes observed that Meta’s web servers became reachable again after 11:30 a.m. ET.
However, some users continued to face errors, which suggested issues with backend services, such as authentication systems, could have been the culprit.
Despite various hacker groups attempting to claim responsibility, the incident aligns more closely with past disruptions caused by internal technical mishaps, such as the significant 2021 outage triggered by an erroneous update to the company’s routers.
As services have been restored, Meta’s swift response has mitigated the potential for long-term impact, but the event serves as a reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in digital infrastructures, even those managed by tech giants like Meta.
FAQs
What caused the Meta outage?
The Meta outage was attributed to a technical issue, as confirmed by Meta’s communications director Andy Stone.
The exact nature of the technical problem was not specified, but backend services like authentication were speculated to be affected.
How long did the Meta outage last?
The outage lasted for about two hours, with services beginning to come back online gradually. Some users continued to experience issues even after the initial recovery.
Were any hacker groups responsible for the Meta outage?
While several hacker groups claimed responsibility for the outage, similar past events have typically been attributed to internal technical errors rather than external attacks.
How did Meta respond to the outage?
Meta responded promptly by acknowledging the issue on social media and assuring users that they were working to resolve it. Services were restored within a few hours.
What impact did the Meta outage have?
The outage occurred on Super Tuesday, raising concerns about its potential impact on voter outreach and information dissemination. However, Meta’s swift action mitigated long-term effects, highlighting the vulnerability of digital platforms.
Was WhatsApp Business too down for some users ?
Meta’s status dashboard showed the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business was also facing issues.
There were around 200 reports of outages for WhatsApp on Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources, including users.
Google play store also was down following Instagram & Facebook ?
DownDetector showed the Google Play Store having issues starting at around 10:03 am ET. The number of complaints submitted to DownDetector soared from 1 to 2,058 in only 30 minutes.
Complaints about the Play Store being down came in from Android users in U.S. cities like Seattle to Android owners unable to search for any new apps in Southwest Brazil.
One DownDetector subscriber wrote, “Play Store not searching for apps. Just keeps spinning and spinning. I guess it is playing with the spinning thing instead of doing its job at being a store.”
According to the Google Play Status Dashboard, an issue with the Play Integrity API started creating the issue at around 10:37 am ET and it ended at 11:40 am ET.
The Play Integrity API helps app developers check to make sure that user actions and requests are coming from a legit Android user who has purchased or installed a developer’s app or game.
It can also detect whether the Android user is using a tampered version of the developer’s app.
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