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Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta, experienced a widespread outage on Tuesday, disrupting access for hundreds of thousands of users globally. The technical issue, which lasted over two hours, prompted concerns and speculation among users and observers.
Response from National Security Council and Meta:
The White House National Security Council monitored the outage, indicating no malicious cyber activity.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed the technical issue via a post on X, a rival social media platform, stating that it had been resolved for all affected users.
Scope of Disruption and User Response:
During the outage peak, over 550,000 reports of disruptions for Facebook and approximately 92,000 for Instagram were recorded by the outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Users expressed frustration on X, reporting difficulties logging in and accessing the platforms.
Meta’s shares experienced a slight decline of 1.2% in afternoon trading following the outage. The company did not provide further details on the technical problem despite requests for clarification.
Internal Impact and Speculation:
Some Meta employees reported difficulties accessing internal work systems during the outage, leading to speculation about potential layoffs. The outage also sparked discussion among Meta employees on the anonymous messaging app Blind.
Social Media Response and Commentary:
The outage became a top trending topic on X, with Elon Musk, owner of the platform, taking a dig at Meta with a post highlighting X’s operational status.
Musk’s purchase of X in 2022 has led to several disruptions, with a notable outage in December affecting users across multiple countries.
