Thousands report login issues as meta scrambles to fix widespread outage affecting its social apps
Meta, the tech giant behind popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, is currently battling a significant outage, impacting thousands of users globally. Reports started pouring in around 10 am, with users facing various issues, from being unexpectedly logged out to encountering errors when trying to log back in. According to Downdetector, a spike in error reports occurred just after 10:30 am ET, with over 500,000 incidents recorded by 11 am. A majority of these reports, approximately 76%, were from users experiencing login difficulties on Facebook.
The outage extends beyond Facebook and Instagram, affecting Meta’s broader ecosystem, including Threads and Quest VR headset owners. Quest users particularly face challenges logging in, which could affect their access to games, downloadable content, and achievements. This comes in the wake of Meta’s recent directive for Oculus account holders to merge their accounts with Meta ones by March 29, highlighting the potential severity of the current login issues.
Andy Stone, Meta’s Communications Director, took to X (formerly Twitter) to acknowledge the problem. Stone’s update reassured users that Meta is aware of the difficulties and is diligently working toward a resolution. This assurance is crucial for users who rely on Meta’s platforms for daily digital interactions and entertainment, emphasizing the outage’s far-reaching implications.
Instagram has not been spared, with users unable to refresh their feeds or post new content. The outage also disrupts Meta’s messaging services and Threads, further illustrating the extensive impact of the technical difficulties across the company’s portfolio.
In response to the ongoing situation, Meta posted a status update, indicating that its engineering teams are actively working to resolve the issue and restore services. This commitment to resolving the outage is echoed in updates regarding the Facebook Login services, which are reportedly in the process of being restored.
Elon Musk, owner of X and a competitor in the social media space, used this opportunity to highlight the reliability of his platform, indirectly critiquing Meta’s current predicament.
Meta has experienced similar outages in the past, with a notable incident in October 2021 that saw a global disruption of its services for about six hours. These recurrent issues underscore the vulnerabilities of digital platforms and the importance of robust systems to prevent future outages
