Update, March 19 (3:00 pm ET): Facebook services appear to be up and running again and the company has issued a statement.
What you need to know
- Several major Facebook services including Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for almost two hours.
- The problem has been found and solved, and services are now coming back online.
It seems Facebook's server farms decided to start their weekend early by crashing on Friday afternoon, taking down Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp for millions of users worldwide. The cause is under investigation and we'll update you as things progress, but for right now, DownDetector and the social media platforms that are still online all concur: Facebook is down and took the rest of its services with it.
Facebook is aware of the issue and a company spokesperson issued the following statement:
"We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing some services across the Facebook family of apps. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."
The outage started around 1 PM ET and has impacted users around the world, leaving users unable to send or receive WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger messages, unable to see or refresh their home feeds, or check in on their Instagram Stories. If you're feeling totally isolated during outages like these, it might be time to consider getting another messaging app to use as a backup for the next time Facebook takes down two of the most popular messaging services on the planet.
Luckily, the outage doesn't seem to be impacting Oculus or Oculus Quest 2, so while you're waiting for your News Feed to come back online, you can get in a few rounds on Beat Saber to work out the adrenaline.
Update, March 19 (3:00 pm ET) ― Face responds as services come back online
Roughly two hours after Facebook initially went down, services appear to be restored and Facebook has issued another brief statement:
"Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have trouble accessing some Facebook services. We resolved this issue for everyone, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
Between social media and DownDetector, it indeed seems like service has been restored for the vast majority of users. Facebook seems to be a little slower to come back up for some than Instagram and WhatsApp, but any remaining connection issues should be resolved shortly as fixes roll out across Facebook's servers.
