Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp users are reporting a "Major Disruption" worldwide (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Meta announced this afternoon that as 4:45 pm EDT, "The fix for the outage impacting service on Cloud API has been deployed and this issue is now mitigated."

Meta is having big-time problems today. As of 3:40 pm EDT, Downdetector lists Instagram, Whatsapp, Facebook, and Facebook Messenger as the top four apps/websites that are having issues based on the number of complaints received from users. For example, the number of Instagram users telling Downdetector about a problem with the app and website soared from 31 to over 5,700 in about 30 minutes. Meta is reporting this outage as a "Major Disruption" on its Business API Status page.

Most of the complaints on Downdetector from Instagram users were from subscribers unable to see Stories that they had just posted. One user said that she had been trying to post a Reel on Instagram for over an hour. 67% of the complaints focused on the app, 28% had a problem with their feed, and 5% could not log in. 

A huge number of Whatsapp users, nearly 25,000, reported that they were having an issue with the app and website at around 2:22 pm. 68% of the complaints were about issues with the app, 26% were not able to receive messages, and 6% were having problems with the website. Users in countries are far apart as New York and Romania were complaining about the messaging platform being down.

A far fewer number of Facebook users, 1,689, submitted a complaint to Downdetector by 2:27 pm EDT. 59% of those included a complaint about the app, 29% cited issues with the website, and 12% had problems signing in. As for Facebook Messenger, the number of complaints soared from 7 to 891 during a 45-minute period that ended at 2:19 pm EDT. Most of the platform's users said that their messages were not going through.

The outage is taking place worldwide with Meta saying that the issues began at 2:11 pm EDT. The company adds, "Our engineering teams are investigating the issue. We will provide another update within 4 hours or sooner if additional information is available."

When we learn more about the outage, we will update this story.