Facebook and Instagram faced a brief outage across the US, with Downdetector recording more than 17,000 reports for Facebook and over 5,000 for Instagram at the peak.
The disruption began around 8:55 pm ET and had largely subsided by about 10 pm ET, while Meta had not given a reason for the outage.
Downdetector's figures are based on user reports and indicate service disruption rather than the exact number of people affected.
Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram experienced a brief outage in the US on Sunday, with thousands of users reporting problems accessing the platforms, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector. The disruption began at around 8:55 pm ET, with reports of problems peaking at more than 17,000 for Facebook and over 5,000 for Instagram. Services had largely recovered by around 10 pm ET, as per Reuters.
Meta had not immediately provided a reason for the disruption, according to Reuters. Since Downdetector's figures are based on user-submitted reports, the number does not represent the actual number of people affected by the outage.
What Happened To Facebook And Instagram?
The outage was reported across the US on Sunday evening, with users experiencing problems with Meta's two major social media platforms.
The reports subsequently dropped sharply by around 10 pm ET, indicating that Facebook and Instagram had largely returned to normal.
The incident affected users in the US, although outage reports were also recorded in other locations. Reports involving Meta's other services, including Messenger and WhatsApp, were comparatively smaller.
At the time of Reuters' report, Meta had not immediately responded to a request for comment on the cause of the outage.
Why Do Social Media Outages Happen?
Large-scale social media outages can result from problems involving servers, network infrastructure, software updates, configuration changes or other technical failures. However, there is no confirmed explanation for this particular outage yet.
The latest disruption is not the first Facebook and Instagram outage reported this year. Reuters noted that the platforms experienced a similar service disruption in July, although the number of reports during that incident was lower.
Downdetector's figures should also be treated as an indicator of disruption rather than a precise count of affected users. The website relies on reports submitted by users, meaning a rise in reports shows that many people were experiencing problems but does not establish exactly how many users lost access.
For now, the main development is that the Facebook and Instagram disruption in the US was brief and largely resolved, while the cause remained unclear.
