Mark Zuckerberg's Meta shed $18 billion in value during global Facebook and Instagram outage
Meta services, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, are used by 3.98 billion people around the world every month
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Facebook, Instagram and Messenger suffered a "technical issue" that left users logged out of their accounts and unable to load the sites as normal. This left hundreds of thousands unable to send or receive messages.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the website Downdetector, which tracks online outages, to report issues with Meta-owned platforms Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Threads.
Spooked by the technical glitch, parent company Meta lost 1.5% of its value as shares plummeted over news that a proportion of its 3.98 billion users worldwide were unable to access its social media platforms. That equates to $18 billion — roughly £14 billion converted.
Share price for Meta, the parent company headed up by Mark Zuckerberg, dropped by 1.5% during the global outages which left millions unable to access the social network website and app
Meta is headed up by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The US company was rebranded from Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
More than 300,000 reports of outages on Facebook were made between about 3.20pm and 4pm, while Instagram users flagged more than 120,000 outages on the site at about the same time.
All social media platforms owned by Meta are now back online after a “technical issue”. Spokesperson Andy Stone shared the news in a post on rival social network X, formerly Twitter.
Stone tweeted: "Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
X owner Elon Musk, who has previously challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a UFC fight, used the global outage to mock his billionaire nemesis.
Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience. https://t.co/ybyyAZNAMn
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) March 5, 2024
During the outage, parent company Meta quickly acknowledged the issues on its status dashboard, with almost all services marked as suffering from an "unknown" issue or "major disruptions".
According to some reports, internal systems used by employees at Facebook, Messenger and Instagram were also been hit with the latest outage.
During the outage, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.”
WhatsApp, which is also owned and operated by Zuckerberg's Meta, was not impacted by the issue.
Over half a million Facebook users are experiencing difficulties logging into the website and mobile app in the United States of America, according to the latest figures collated by Down Detector
DOWN DETECTOR
It's still unclear whether Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram have been impacted by the same internal glitch — or whether separate errors are impacting all Meta services.
The first reports of trouble started around 3.20pm GMT. GB News was able to replicate both the Facebook login error and Instagram feed load glitch on Google Chrome web browser and iOS apps.
Hundreds of thousands across the United Kingdom are currently unable to access Facebook due to the ongoing outage at Meta
DOWN DETECTOR
Independent website Down Detector, which monitors outages using mentions across public posts on social media, tracked over 150,000 reports from frustrated users in the UK. In the United States, there are over 500,000 reports of problems with the social network.
Instagram and Messenger are also experiencing outages, with a peak of 43,000 reports in the UK and 84,000 in the United States.
Facebook users who were unable to use the service have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to complain about the problems. As well as being a vital tool to message friends and family across the world, Facebook is critical for many small businesses in the UK.
Meta has acknowledged the outage to its services on its status webpage, which shows disruptions across almost all of its business tools, which are linked to social networks like Facebook and Instagram
META
What's Wrong With Facebook, Messenger, And Instagram?
An unknown outage plagued Facebook, the world's most popular social media website, and stopped the website from loading correctly. Instead of launching the News Feed when you navigate to facebook.com or launch the iOS or Android app, you were presented with the login screen.
However, typing the correct email and password will not launch the service as normal. Instead, you were thrown back to the login screen — as if you'd entered the wrong email and password combo.
Meanwhile, Instagram users are unable to refresh their feeds or Instagram Stories. Opening the photo-focused social network on your iPhone or Android device brings up an error message in the lower half of the screen, stating: "Couldn't Refresh Feed". However, users stay logged into Instagram.
Messenger, which is a separate app on iPhone and Android but can be used from the facebook.com website on a web browser on your laptop or desktop PC, is blocking users from sending or receiving new messages, audio or video calls because of the outage.