Błøggęr . 5th Mar, 2024, 1:43 AM
On March 5, Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta, experienced a significant outage lasting over two hours, affecting countless users worldwide. The disruption, attributed to a technical glitch, began around 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT). Reports flooded in from individuals unable to access their accounts, expressing frustration on alternative platforms like X.
While the White House National Security Council monitored the situation, they found no evidence of malicious cyber activity. At its peak, the outage prompted over 550,000 reports for Facebook and approximately 92,000 for Instagram, according to Downdetector.com.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged the issue, confirming its resolution without providing specific details. Meta's shares saw a slight dip in trading following the incident, though the company has yet to offer further insights into the technical problem. With a staggering 3.19 billion daily active users across its suite of apps, including WhatsApp and Threads, Meta's influence on global digital connectivity is substantial.
Though WhatsApp Business also experienced API issues, they were relatively minor compared to the main outage. Meanwhile, Meta employees voiced concerns on the anonymous messaging app Blind, fearing they had been laid off due to difficulty accessing internal systems.
The outage quickly became a hot topic on X, with platform owner Elon Musk humorously commenting on Meta's plight. Musk, who acquired X in 2022, has faced his own challenges maintaining service reliability, including a notable outage in December affecting tens of thousands of users worldwide.
