WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram go DOWN – 80K+ users experience app issues
WHATSAPP, Facebook, and Instagram Outing
WHATSAPP, Facebook, and Instagram have gone down for millions of users in a massive worldwide blackout.
Problems with the aministrators, which are all owned by Facebook, began around 4:45pm BST (11:45am ET), according to outage trackers online.
A grossing 80,000 individuals in the US have reported problems with Facebook in the past hour
In excess of 80,000 people in the US have reported problems with Facebook in the past hourCredit: DownDetector
Hundreds of thousands of individuals have recorded and complained regarding problems with the social networking apps on the web site DownDetector.
Google, Amazon, Spectrum, Verizon, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Apple, Telegram, and Cricket Wireless also have news reports of outages. It’ not quite clear if all of those school issues are connected.
several are reporting that they’re unable to access the smartphone apps and websites of the massively popular services.
Those making an attempt to open the sites on a desktop are reportingly being met with a black, white page and a message that reads “500 server error.”
The iOS and android versions of the Instagram and Facebook apps can open however won’t load users’ feeds or show them new content.
WhatsApp messages aren’t reaching their recipients, with sent texts sitting with a clock icon next to them to point that they haven’t been dispatched.
Facebook’s safety head was questioned by lawmakers last Thursday over what the company knew about the potential for Instagram to be harmful to young users’ mental health.
The Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security convened the hearing in the wake of a Wall Street Journal investigation citing Facebook’s own internal research, allegedly leaked by a whistleblower, that found Instagram adversely impacted mental health issues in teens, especially girls.
“We’re here today because Facebook has shown us once again that it is incapable of holding itself accountable,” Blumenthal said in his opening remarks last week.
“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience,” a Facebook company spokesperson
Facebook defended itself against the bipartisan scrutiny at the hearing.
“We understand that recent reporting has raised a lot of questions about our internal research, including research we do to better understand young people’s experiences on Instagram,” Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, stated in written testimony. “We strongly disagree with how this reporting characterized our work, so we want to be clear about what that research shows, and what it does not show.”
The new, upcoming committee hearing, titled “Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower,” is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday.
While some Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outages only affect certain geographic regions, the services are down worldwide today. This includes the United States, the UK, Brazil, Kuwait, and more.
The outage is also affecting platforms and services that use Facebook login. Niantic, creator of Pokémon GO, says that it is “looking into reports of errors associated with Facebook login, and will update here once we have more information.” Other services that also use Facebook login are believed to be affected, as well as Oculus.
WhatsApp statement
In a statement, made by officials at WhatsApp they acknowledge that its service is down:
We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible.
