Facebook and Instagram suffer widespread outage affecting thousands

Thousands of users reported widespread outages affecting Facebook and Instagram on Monday, with the disruption appearing to be temporary as services showed signs of recovery. The issues, which began in the early hours of the morning, were tracked by the third-party monitoring site Downdetector, which recorded over 17,000 reports for Facebook and more than 5,000 for Instagram. Users across multiple countries, including the United States, the Philippines, Canada, and Mexico, described being unable to access the platforms. Common complaints included seeing white screens or pages stuck on the respective logos without loading further. Some users also reported problems logging into the apps or completing searches. The outage appeared to peak around 9:15 p.m. ET on Sunday before reports began to decline. By approximately 9:50 p.m. ET, the issues seemed to have largely been resolved, although individual users may have continued to experience problems. The disruption highlighted the significant impact a temporary failure can have on major social media services used by millions.