Instagram and Facebook down in 'worldwide outage' leaving thousands unable to access accounts

Instagram and Facebook crashed on Friday afternoon, with thousands of users reportedly having issues with the apps worldwide.

According to Down Detector, an online platform that provides real-time information about the status of various sites, the issues began shortly after 2.30pm on Friday afternoon.

More than 20,000 total problems were reported, with around 17,000 users reporting issues with Facebook and 3,000 with Instagram.

68% of complaints about Instagram said they were struggling with the app, 12% were unable to log in, and 10% were having issues with the server connection.

Many users reported on social media that while the main feed loaded, Stories would not, and direct messages would not send.

One user wrote: “uhhhh is instagram down for anyone else or is my phone just bugging?” with another writing: “I can’t even log in.”

Others had problems with Facebook, including Facebook Messenger. More than half of those reported issues with the Facebook app, while a third said they were having issues logging in.

One user posted: “Have I been hacked on Facebook or what? Is Facebook working for anyone?”

It is currently unclear what the cause of the outage was - and by 3.15pm, services appeared to return to normal.

Neither Facebook nor Instagram have released any statement on their official X or Threads accounts to acknowledge today’s issues.

Evening Standard have contacted Meta for comment.