Meta’s social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads, faced a huge outage on March 5, 2024, that left millions of users around the world unable to access them.
The outage began around 10:30 a.m. ET, as users reported on social media that they were logged out of Facebook and Instagram and could not log in again, even with the right password. Some users also saw error messages that said “something went wrong” and to try again later. The problem affected both the app and the website versions of the platforms.
Meta has not given an official reason for the outage, but some sources have suggested that it could be due to a configuration error, a cyberattack, or a network problem. Meta’s only shows results related to Meta’s business products, like Ads Manager, not the platforms as a whole.
The outage caused frustration and confusion among users, who shared their feelings on other social media platforms, such as Twitter and TikTok. Some users also made fun of the situation, creating memes and videos mocking Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Others worried about the effect of the outage on their personal and professional lives.
This is not the first time that Meta’s platforms have had an outage. In March 2019, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for more than 14 hours, affecting users around the world. Meta said that outage was due to a “server configuration change”. In November 2020, Facebook and Instagram also had a short outage that lasted about an hour, which Meta said was due to a “networking issue”.
Mexico Daily Post Newsroom