Facebook And Instagram Down Again: Second Outage In 72 Hours Hits Meta Platforms, Thousands Report Problems

Facebook and Instagram have been hit by another major disruption on Wednesday, which was the second time in just 72 hours that Meta’s flagship platforms have gone offline. The latest outage left thousands unable to log in, scroll feeds, or access the websites, reigniting frustration among users who had only just recovered from a similar blackout over the weekend.

According to Downdetector, a site that tracks live service disruptions, a combined total of 3600 users reported problems with the two apps on Wednesday. The complaints appeared to spike later, when the volume of reports on Facebook reached the highest point. The issues were not limited to one platform, with users on both Facebook and Instagram flagging similar faults at the same time.

Additionally, the outage has drawn particular ire because it comes so soon after Sunday’s outage, when both services went down and left people locked out of their accounts. On that occasion, many were greeted with a message stating their account was 'unavailable due to a site issue'. Amidst the outage and with no official timeline for a fix, uncertainty is again mounting over when normal service will resume.

Thousands Flag Login And Connection Troubles

The nature of the complaints on Wednesday mirrored those from earlier in the week. On Facebook, the users claimed that they were struggling to sign in, were being kicked out mid-session, and could not load the website properly. On Instagram, the problems centred on the app itself and on server connections, with many unable to refresh their feeds or post stories.

Downdetector’s figures showed the disruption was major, with reports continuing to climb through the afternoon. Although the exact cause has not been confirmed by Meta, the scale of the reports suggested a backend issue affecting both platforms simultaneously.

Users Take To X To Vent Frustration

Amidst Meta outages, disgruntled users turned to rival platform X to share their annoyance. One posted, “Instagram down again gosh.” Another wrote, “Instagram stop breaking down every three days.” A third simply said, “Urgh down again.”

The tone showed a growing annoyance that the apps, used by billions globally, appear to be suffering repeated instability. The back-to-back outages have raised questions about reliability, especially given both services are under the umbrella of Meta, the multi-billion pound company led by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

The users were advised to check Downdetector for live updates, while many have defaulted to X, YouTube and WhatsApp, the latter also owned by Meta, to stay connected.