Highlight

• All Meta-owned platforms including Facebook and Instagram experienced a global outage on Tuesday this week.
• The global Meta outage affected users worldwide for approximately two hours.
• Meta reported a technical issue amid brewing conjectures.

This week’s Global Meta Outage reportedly derailed the company’s entire network including access to Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Threads, and Quest headsets.

The outage lasted for around 2 to 3 hours before everything returned to functioning normally.

In the aftermath, social media and several new reports have soared with conjectures and theories around the cause of the outage.

Let’s take a quick look at what we know about the global Meta outage and what was the likely cause.

What Happened During the Global Meta Outage?

Facebook, Instagram and other Meta-owned platforms were down for approximately two hours around the world on Tuesday.

The outages were first reported at around 3.30 pm GMT i.e. 10.30 am EST, 2.30 am AEDT.

During the outage, the services refused login attempts and feed stalls.

Users reportedly were logged out of their Facebook accounts, encountered difficulties refreshing their feeds, stories/comments failing to load, complete shutdown or an error message upon launch.

Interestingly, the Meta outage coincided with reportedly login issues on Google’s platform as well.

This encouraged several users to speculate a common cause between the outages at the two tech conglomerates.

It is significant to note that both tech companies largely control their infrastructure.

Among the few social media platforms that remained functional during this unexpected outage was Elon Musk’s X (previously known as Twitter).

Users from all Meta platforms were quick to flock to X and report the outage.

The Meta-down memes were overflowing on X with people sharing videos and images depicting the outage scenario.

Musk too joined the bandwagon and shared a meme showing how X was superior.

As per the outage tracking website Downdetector.com, there were over 550,000 reports of disruptions for Facebook and more than 92,000 for Instagram.

It was also reported that the outage for WhatsApp and Threads was much smaller compared to Instagram and other platforms.

Moreover, Meta shares were 1.2% down in afternoon trading.

What was Meta’s Response?

The network outage problem across Google and Meta apps was reported around 9 pm, as per network outage tracking platform Down Detector.

Meta acknowledged the widespread issues affecting their platforms and assured users that they are actively working to resolve the problem.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in an X post acknowledged the snag when it took place. “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now,” he posted.

Once the issue was resolved, Stone also confirmed, “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologise for any inconvenience.”

However, the spokesperson didn’t identify the issue that caused the global disruption.

What Was the Likely Cause of Global Meta Outage?

There was widespread speculation that Meta might have fallen victim to a cyber attack, particularly given the timing of Super Tuesday.

It is the time when a significant number of US states conduct their primary presidential elections.

However, although security experts acknowledge this possibility, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has expressed scepticism, deeming such an occurrence unlikely.

The White House National Security Council was also monitoring the incident. A senior US cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency official said on a press call: “We are aware of the incident and at this time we are not aware of any specific election nexus or any specific malicious cyber activity.”

Since seemingly similar issues with login attempts were also reported with Google platforms, many claims suggested the issue could be broader than meta.

Cybersecurity expert and an associate professor of computer science and member of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, Matthew Green reportedly said, “There are a number of services having trouble with at least parts of their systems, particularly the ability to log into websites. This may indicate a common cause, like a failure at a major cloud services provider.”

Earlier, Meta experienced the largest outage in 2021 when Facebook went down. It later prompted an apology from founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

FAQs

What happened in the Meta outage of 2021?

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp experienced an outage similar to the recent one in 2021 as well. It lasted for nearly 6 hours and impacted more than 3 billion users worldwide. In a later blog post, Facebook noted that the outage happened due to a mishap during a routine maintenance job.

What is the impact of Global Meta Outage on the company?

After the global outage hit Meta’s social media platforms on Tuesday, March 5th, 2024, billions of users were impacted and the company lost an estimated $3 billion. According to reports by several media portals, the stocks of Meta closed in red down 1.6 per cent at USD 490.22 during March 5 trading session according to NASDAQ.

What issues did users face during the recent Meta outage?

Users reported various issues, such as being logged out of their Facebook accounts, making it impossible to log back in. Similarly, Instagram users encountered difficulties refreshing their feeds, with stories and comments failing to load for some individuals. Threads, an app developed by Meta, is also experiencing a complete shutdown, displaying an error message upon launch.

What is Downdetector?

Downdetector is an online platform that provides users with real-time information about the status of various websites and services.

What caused the Meta outage?

The Meta outage was attributed to a technical issue, as confirmed by Meta’s communications director Andy Stone.

The exact nature of the technical problem was not specified, but backend services like authentication were speculated to be affected.

How long did the Meta outage last?

The outage lasted for about two hours, with services beginning to come back online gradually. Some users continued to experience issues even after the initial recovery.

Were any hacker groups responsible for the Meta outage?

While several hacker groups claimed responsibility for the outage, similar past events have typically been attributed to internal technical errors rather than external attacks.

How did Meta respond to the outage?

Meta responded promptly by acknowledging the issue on social media and assuring users that they were working to resolve it. Services were restored within a few hours.

What impact did the Meta outage have?

The outage occurred on Super Tuesday, raising concerns about its potential impact on voter outreach and information dissemination. However, Meta’s swift action mitigated long-term effects, highlighting the vulnerability of digital platforms.

Was WhatsApp Business too down for some users ?

Meta’s status dashboard showed the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business was also facing issues.

There were around 200 reports of outages for WhatsApp on Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources, including users.

Google play store also was down following Instagram & Facebook ?

DownDetector showed the Google Play Store having issues starting at around 10:03 am ET. The number of complaints submitted to DownDetector soared from 1 to 2,058 in only 30 minutes.

Complaints about the Play Store being down came in from Android users in U.S. cities like Seattle to Android owners unable to search for any new apps in Southwest Brazil.

One DownDetector subscriber wrote, “Play Store not searching for apps. Just keeps spinning and spinning. I guess it is playing with the spinning thing instead of doing its job at being a store.”

According to the Google Play Status Dashboard, an issue with the Play Integrity API started creating the issue at around 10:37 am ET and it ended at 11:40 am ET.

The Play Integrity API helps app developers check to make sure that user actions and requests are coming from a legit Android user who has purchased or installed a developer’s app or game.

It can also detect whether the Android user is using a tampered version of the developer’s app.

Has Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta loses $3 billion after Instagram, Facebook global outage?
Has company’s share price fallen ?

The stocks of Meta closed in red down 1.6 per cent at USD 490.22 during March 5 trading session according to NASDAQ.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder, chairman and CEO of Meta, lost over USD 2.79 billion in a day to USD 176 billion in his new worth, as per Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but he maintained his position as the world’s fourth-richest person.

According to Reuters, Meta’s status dashboard showed the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business was also facing issues. There were around 200 reports of outages for WhatsApp on Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources, including users.

In February 2024, the Facebook co-founder’s net worth surged by USD 27.1 billion after Meta’s quarterly results far exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, sending its shares up about 20 per cent. He became worth USD 169.5 billion, the richest he’s ever been, and surpassed Bill Gates to move into the fourth spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Meta announced a quarterly cash dividend of 50 cents a share for Class A and B common stock beginning in March. With Zuckerberg holding about 350 million shares, he would take home about $175 million in each quarterly payment before taxes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Was the global outage a repeat of 2021 ?

The explanation appears to be that it was effectively a repeat of what happened back in 2021: a mistake made by someone at Meta.

That time there was an error which occurred, when engineers were checking the availability of network capacity.

During one of these routine maintenance jobs, a command was issued with the intention to assess the availability of global backbone capacity, which unintentionally took down all the connections in our backbone network, effectively disconnecting Facebook data centers globally.

Our systems are designed to audit commands like these to prevent mistakes like this, but a bug in that audit tool didn’t properly stop the command.

This change caused a complete disconnection of our server connections between our data centers and the internet.

Also Read: Instagram down for thousands of users globally, one way you can access it: Downdetector

Also Read: Meta Outage Affects Facebook, Instagram, and Threads Globally, Services Now Restored