On Tuesday evening, March 5, 2024, Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram experienced a significant downtime, leaving many users unable to access their accounts.

According to DownDetector, a website that monitors real-time outages, Facebook went offline at approximately 8:57 p.m., resulting in 15,381 reports of issues. Similarly, Instagram also encountered an outage at the same time, with 32,537 reports of problems.

Users reported being abruptly logged out of their Facebook and Instagram accounts during the downtime. Many users were unable to log back in, regardless of whether they were using the app or the website.

The cause of the outage and the exact duration of the downtime have not been officially disclosed by Meta at this time.

However, "the widespread reports and user complaints indicate that it was a substantial disruption affecting a significant number of users,” Cyber Expert, David Gyedu, explained.

He told GBC online that, "the incident highlights the vulnerability of large-scale social media platforms and the impact such outages can have on individuals and businesses who rely on these platforms for communication, networking, and marketing purposes.”

As Facebook and Instagram work to resolve the issues and restore normal service, "users are advised to stay tuned for updates from the company regarding the cause of the outage and steps being taken to prevent similar incidents in the future”.