Thousands left without access as Facebook and WhatsApp crash

On a Wednesday evening, Meta's applications, including WhatsApp and Instagram, faced significant interruptions globally. Starting around 18:00 GMT, issues were reported from multiple regions including the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US, impacting the ability for over 22,000 users to access Facebook and over 18,000 users to use WhatsApp. Users encountered various problems such as an inability to use the applications entirely or difficulties refreshing their feeds. In response, Meta acknowledged a "technical issue" that was affecting some users, assuring them that they were addressing the problems promptly. As the situation unfolded, Meta provided updates through social media, urging patience. The services did manage to restore functionality fairly quickly, as indicated by subsequent messages from WhatsApp and Instagram, who both apologized for the disruptions and reaffirmed their commitment to service reliability. However, this event led to discussions around the reliability of Meta’s platforms, which are among the world’s most popular, having billions of active users. Past occurrences, including a notable outage in 2021, have raised questions about the stability and robustness of Meta's service infrastructure, prompting consumers to rethink their dependence on these platforms. Such outages often tarnish user experience and could potentially impact business engagement on Meta's applications, given the increasing reliance on digital communication and e-commerce platforms. In light of these recent challenges, users are calling for improved transparency and assurance from Meta regarding its service continuity measures to prevent future disruptions.