Meta's Major Platforms Experience Global Outage

Key applications under Meta's umbrella—WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram—encountered significant disruptions worldwide. Users began reporting issues with these services starting at 6:35 PM, Spanish mainland time. DownDetector, a website specializing in real-time tracking of internet service disruptions, identified issues affecting message posting and viewing across all three platforms.

WhatsApp was the first to encounter difficulties, with messages either failing to load or experiencing long delays. Once a message was composed and the send button pressed, users would see a clock icon, indicating the message hadn't been processed. While some users eventually received messages, it was often a minute or more later. Fortunately, this issue has now been resolved.

Meanwhile, Instagram became completely unresponsive, preventing users from uploading new posts. Similarly, Facebook and its Messenger app were unable to provide consistent service. Threads, another Meta application seen as a competitor to Twitter, also reported issues in countries such as the United States and Spain.

Around 7:30 PM, services began to show signs of recovery. Andy Stone, Meta's Communications Director, issued a statement via Meta's official account on Twitter: "We are aware of a technical issue impacting some users' ability to access our apps. We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience."

As of now, the specific causes behind this widespread disruption at Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, remain unknown.