Meta’s platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, have been fully restored after a global outage disrupted services for millions of users, including those in Pakistan. The disruption, which began around 10:58 PM Pakistani time on Wednesday, left users unable to access or use the platforms for several hours.
According to DownDetector, an online platform that tracks website and app interruptions, the outage impacted users in Asia, Europe, the UK, and the US with more than 70,000 complaints reported on Instagram at the peak. WhatsApp and Facebook were also affected with thousands of users complaining of problems that included being displayed with an error message, unable to send or receive messages.
Meta acknowledged the outage via a post on X (ex-Twitter) explaining to users that services were being slowly restored. After almost three hours of the problem, Meta confirmed that the problem was solved, with the last message in the chat being “And we’re back, happy chatting!”
We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.
— Meta (@Meta) December 11, 2024
This disruption marks the latest in a series of outages affecting Meta’s platforms, which have become an integral part of communication for billions of users worldwide. In 2021, a similar widespread outage of over six hours interfered with users’ experiences in a big way. The company, however, has not provided final assurance that all services that might have been interrupted have been restored.
Meta, which serves over 3.19 billion daily active users globally, still has challenges maintaining the dependability of its platform given the increasing dependence on its products.
