Users of Meta-controlled social media platforms have been locked out globally as the company deals with a “technical issue”.
Frustrated users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp flocked to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday evening to report the global outage of the three apps owned by tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg.
Downdetector reported significant spikes in outage complaints, with Instagram receiving over 70,000 reports above average and Facebook exceeding 100,000 reports.
“We’re aware that a technical issue is affecting some users’ ability to access our apps,” Meta stated in a post on X. “We’re working to restore normal service as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
Facebook experienced a similar outage in May 2024 and in October 2021, both attributed to technical faults rather than the security breaches initially feared.
Users attempting to access Facebook were prompted to log in but found themselves unable to sign in even with the correct credentials. On Instagram, mobile users were unable to refresh their feeds.
Facebook remains the world’s largest social media platform, boasting three billion active monthly users.
Instagram, according to the most recent data, has approximately 1.35 billion users.
X, formerly Twitter, saw an uptick in activity as users turned to the platform after being unable to access Meta’s services.
As of 2021, Nigeria had around 33 million active social media users, according to Statista. WhatsApp is the most popular platform in the country, with over 90 million users.
Around 61.4 per cent of Nigerian social media users are on X, 86.2 per cent on Facebook, 81.6 per cent on YouTube, 73.1 per cent on Instagram, and 67.2 per cent on Facebook Messenger.