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Facebook, Instagram users report widespread outage

By
Chris Morris
Chris Morris
Former Contributing Writer
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By
Chris Morris
Chris Morris
Former Contributing Writer
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 5, 2024, 11:22 AM ET
Screen grab of error message on Facebook
Users are unable to log on to Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta platforms. Chris Morris

Facebook did a face-plant Tuesday morning, as hundreds of thousands of users reported problems on Meta’s flagship social media platform, as well as Instagram, Threads, and the Messenger app.

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Users were logged out of their accounts and unable to log back in, receiving a message reading, “The password you’ve entered is incorrect.” Attempts to reset their passwords were also unsuccessful. The issues started at approximately 10:00 a.m. ET.

DownDetector shows a huge spike in reported outages for Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, topping half a million users at its peak. And Twitter/X was filled with posts by people checking to ensure they weren’t the only users experiencing the problems—and making sure that their accounts were not hacked.

Meta did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the outage or when it might be resolved.

The company’s Metastatus.com site, however, shows “major disruptions” on its Meta Admin Center business tool and other systems, including Facebook Login. A message on that site reads, “We are aware of an issue impacting Facebook Login. Our engineering teams are actively looking to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

Three years ago, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp suffered an outage that lasted for more than six hours. That was caused, the company said at the time, by “configuration changes on backbone routers.”

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About the Author
By Chris MorrisFormer Contributing Writer

Chris Morris is a former contributing writer at Fortune, covering everything from general business news to the video game and theme park industries.

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