David Bridges
The popular social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Messenger are gradually resuming normal operations following significant technical difficulties that disrupted access to many of Meta’s leading applications for several hours on Wednesday. In a recent update shared via X, the company stated, “We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks.” This message was shared nearly four hours after Meta first acknowledged the widespread outages impacting its services.
While the exact cause of the disruptions has not been disclosed, Meta’s status dashboard indicated as of 4:30 PM PT on Wednesday that there were still some “major disruptions” affecting its business and transparency tools. Other services, however, were reported as “resolved” or “recovering.” It appears that the core functionalities of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, and Messenger have largely returned to normal, much to the relief of users worldwide.
Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who’ve been affected by the outage.
— Meta (@Meta) December 11, 2024
Earlier in the day, users reported over 90,000 cases of difficulties specifically with Facebook.com on Downdetector, as many individuals across platforms like X and Bluesky experienced challenges in loading and utilizing Meta’s suite of applications. For a brief period, even Meta’s own corporate website displayed a message stating, “This page isn’t available right now.” When Engadget initially reached out to Meta for a statement, the company referred to a concise note on X confirming that “a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps.”
This isn’t the first time Meta has faced a significant outage. In March 2024, users also experienced a two-hour loss of access to the company’s services, which was similarly attributed to a “technical issue” by Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director. The recurring nature of these challenges raises questions about the stability of the platforms that millions of users rely on daily.
Update, December 11, 2024, 4:50PM ET: We have included additional information regarding the duration of the outage and its impact on Meta’s enterprise tools.
Update, December 11, 2024, 7:50 PM ET: Further insights from Meta on the status of the outage have been incorporated.
Daniel Mercer
