Meta experienced a significant outage affecting Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in March 2024. Users reported login issues, errors loading feeds, and general inaccessibility across the platforms. Downdetector, a service that tracks website outages, recorded approximately 500,000 reports for Facebook, 50,000 for Instagram, and 10,000 for Facebook Messenger at the peak of the disruption.
The outage lasted for around two hours, causing widespread frustration for users who rely on these platforms for communication, business, and social connection. Some users were automatically logged out of their accounts, while others received error messages indicating that something had gone wrong. Threads, Meta’s newest platform and a direct competitor to X (formerly Twitter), also displayed error messages, preventing users from accessing their feeds.
Meta acknowledged the issue on its status page, classifying the disruption as “major” and affecting key functionalities like Facebook login. Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson, confirmed the outage on X and assured users that the company was working to resolve the problem.
Within an hour and a half, the number of reported issues began to decline significantly. Downdetector’s data, however, reflects only reported outages, suggesting the actual number of affected users likely exceeded the reported figures. Shortly after noon Eastern Time, Meta announced that the issue had been resolved. The company attributed the outage to a technical issue and apologized for the inconvenience caused.
While major platform outages are relatively uncommon, they highlight the potential vulnerabilities of relying heavily on centralized online services. The 2024 outage was not an isolated incident. In 2021, a much larger outage affected Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for nearly six hours. Meta clarified that the 2021 incident was not related to malicious activity. Similarly, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated that there was no indication of malicious cyber activity or connection to the Super Tuesday primary elections in relation to the 2024 outage. These events underscore the importance of robust infrastructure and contingency plans for online platforms to minimize disruption and maintain user trust. The outage followed a recent, unrelated service disruption at AT&T, further emphasizing the vulnerability of communication networks.
