newspop
Facebook & Instagram Crash : Users Struggle to Access Their Accounts
New Delhi : Meta-owned social media platforms Facebook and Instagram experienced a sudden service disruption in the United States on Sunday evening, September 20, leaving thousands of users facing difficulties accessing the platforms, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector.
The disruption began at around 8:55 p.m. ET, with outage reports rising sharply within a short period. By around 9:11 p.m. ET, Downdetector had recorded more than 17,000 reports of problems with Facebook, while Instagram crossed 5,000 reported outages, indicating a significant spike in user complaints.
Users reportedly faced difficulties accessing their accounts and using the platforms normally, although the exact nature of the problems varied. Downdetector monitors online service disruptions by collecting user-submitted reports and information from multiple sources, meaning the number of reports does not necessarily represent the actual number of people affected. The outage appeared to be relatively brief, with reports falling sharply by around 10 p.m. ET, suggesting that Facebook and Instagram had largely recovered for many users.
Other Meta services also saw some increase in reported problems, although the impact was considerably smaller. At the time of the outage, Meta had not immediately provided an official explanation for the disruption, and the precise cause remained unclear. Reports of service problems were also seen in some other countries, although the most significant spike cited in the initial reports came from the United States.
The incident once again highlighted how quickly a technical disruption on a major social media platform can affect millions of users who rely on these services for communication, content sharing, business and everyday interactions.
