WhatsApp, Instagram down in global outage

Facebook’s platforms, including online messaging service WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram, were down for thousands of users on Friday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Downdetector showed there were more than 1.2 million incidents of people reporting issues with Instagram, while over 23 000 users posted about issues with WhatsApp on the website.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from a series of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outages might be affecting a larger number of users.

The problems appear to be affecting users across the globe.  — Reported by Munsif Vengattil, (c) 2021 Reuters

• Update: Facebook-owned platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, appeared to be back online from about 8.30pm South African time