Facebook and Instagram Outages: Who Was Affected and Why
Online monitoring service DownDetector reported earlier the outage began around 1200 GMT and affected Facebook as well as its Instagram and WhatsApp services. “The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone,” the company tweeted at 0006 GMT Thursday, adding they were sorry for “any inconvenience.”
Instagram was partially down earlier this week and has had outages in the past.
Social media sites like #Instagram could shut down at anytime.
Watch the video below or click the link to watch the full #tutorial on how to download your Instagram data –>> https://t.co/S8LYnbk0LL pic.twitter.com/YenoUM0hG2
— Romona Foster 🎤📆 (@RomonaFoster) July 5, 2019
A Facebook spokesperson, also speaking on behalf of Instagram and WhatsApp, explained that a “routine maintenance operation” accidentally triggered a bug that made it difficult for users to upload or send photos and videos, US media reported.
Photo: RICHARD DREW/AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
#Facebookdown and #instagramdown were trending on Twitter as users around the world reported these apps were not functioning.
According to DownDetector, thousands of users around the world were reporting outages, with Europe and North America most impacted. Both individual users, as well as businesses and organizations, were affected.
“Yes, we are affected by #instagramdown, too,” the CIA tweeted during the outage. “No, we didn’t cause it. No, we can’t fix yours. Did you try turning it off and back on again?” Earlier this year, an outage lasting as long as 24 hours that hit Facebook services was blamed on a “server configuration change.”
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The March 13 outage was believed to be the worst ever for the internet giant, which reaches an estimated 2.7 billion people with its core social network, Instagram and messaging applications.
The company did not immediately respond to an AFP query on Wednesday’s outage.
