'Technical issue' sparks widespread Facebook, Meta problems

(NEXSTAR) — Meta users reported widespread issues with the company's social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads on Wednesday.

User-reported issues for Facebook alone topped 90,000 on Downdetector as of 12:30 p.m. CT. Outage reports for Instagram had exceeded 60,000, while about 11,000 were reported on Messenger and WhatsApp.

The leading complaints for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads were related to the app, Downdetector shows. The top issue for WhatsApp users was sending messages while Messenger users were struggling to log in.

For some Facebook and Instagram users, their timelines seemed to work fine, but they were unable to see posts on their own accounts.

Users outside of the U.S. were also reporting issues with the Meta sites on Downdetector. Complaints were reported in Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Panama, Portugal, and Venezuela, among other countries.

Shortly before 1 p.m. CT, reported issues with the sites began to dip on Downdetector.

Meta's status tracker, however, was showing major disruptions across almost all business tools, developer platforms, and transparency tools just before 2:30 p.m. CT. Initially, the dashboard showed some disruptions before other sections were upgraded to major disruption statuses.

"We're experiencing wide-spread major disruptions across all services and products," Meta wrote in an update on its status page. "Our engineering teams are aware and are working on restoring services."

In separate posts to X before 1 p.m. CT, Meta and Instagram acknowledged users' ability to access platforms, citing "a technical issue."

"We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and are sorry for any inconvenience," Meta wrote.

In March, Facebook and Instagram users found themselves locked out of their accounts during a widespread outage that also impacted Messenger and Threads. Andy Stone, Meta’s head of communications, addressed the outage on X, explaining that "a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services."

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