Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp outage blights users across the globe

Social networking users across the globe have run into technical difficulties when trying to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp this afternoon.

Computer Weekly contacted Facebook, which owns all three of the social networking and messaging entities, for comment about the nature of the outages and when it expects to have them rectified by.

In response, a company spokesperson said the firm was aware of the issues and working to find a fix: “We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble uploading images, videos and other files on our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”

Data from the Downtime Detector website shows all three services have been experiencing problems since 2.00pm, UK time, with the majority (91%) of the Instagram issues pertaining to users being unable to access their news feeds. A markedly smaller proportion (2%) are also experiencing login issues.

In Facebook’s case, users are reporting problems accessing photos (91%), while a smaller proportion have run into issues logging in (4%) or encountered a total blackout (3%) when trying to access the site.

WhatsApp users, meanwhile, are reporting issues with receiving messages (69%), connectivity (28%) and logging in (1%).

The Downtime Detector location data further shows it is users across the UK, parts of Europe and in North and South America who appear to be bearing the brunt of the issues. 

This is not the first time all three services have gone offline at once, as a similar downtime incident in March 2019 saw users unable to access its services for several hours.

According to national newspaper reports at the time, that incident was down to the fact that all three share infrastructure, and a server defect resulted in all three services falling offline for several hours.