It’s not just you: Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger are down across the globe

If you were hoping for a respite from awkward Thanksgiving conversations about politics, I’ve got some bad news for you: both Facebook and Instagram have been suffering from intermittent periods of downtime today.

Users are reporting issues downloading new content, with their apps showing whatever’s cached to their phones and tablets. Other users say they can’t even get the page to load altogether.

On its official Twitter account, Instagram acknowledged the problem, adding it’s actively trying to resolve the issue.

We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook’s family of apps, including Instagram. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. #InstagramDown

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— Instagram (@instagram) November 28, 2019

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook’s family of apps, including Instagram,” the image sharing platform wrote. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”

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A Global Problem

Despite this outage coinciding with one of the biggest holidays in the American calendar, it’s worth noting this outage is a global problem, with users across the globe unable to access the aforementioned social networking sites.

According to DownDetector, the majority of Instagram users affected by this downtime are in Central Europe, while #InstagramDown briefly trended across the UK.

Meanwhile, Facebook users across the US are reporting issues accessing the site. There are also scattered reports of problems accessing Messenger, according to The Verge.

¿Did anyone else is getting this error? It´s messenger web.#facebookdown #messengerdown pic.twitter.com/mt0U3YnvV8

— Moisés Aguilar (@moi12_freg) November 28, 2019

As far as timing goes, this isn’t ideal. No doubt there are people across the US frustrated that they can’t share their food photos, or covertly message their friends about Uncle Ralph’s deranged xenophobic rantings.

The good news is that these outages, although rare, usually pass within a few hours. And in the meantime, at least you’ve got Twitter.

Have you been able to use Facebook and Instagram as normal today, or were you caught up in the downtime. Let us know via our Twitter account.

Editor’s Recommendations: 

• Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are experiencing some serious outages right now
• In case you missed it, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram went down overnight

Matthew Hughes

Matthew Hughes is a journalist from Liverpool, England. His interests include security, startups, food, and storytelling. Past work can be found on The Register, Reason, The Next Web, and Wired.