Close on the heels of the massive worldwide Internet blackout on Tuesday that brought down several major websites, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp reported outage on Thursday.
Thousands of people across the world reported that they could not access Facebook and sister services. In some places users experienced extreme slowness in accessing these services while in other countries the blackout was complete.
Downdetector confirmed the outage, saying that a high number of reports came in on the night suggesting a widespread outage of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Downdetector says as much as 40 percent of the Facebook users were unable to access it while, the number was as high as 60 percent for WhatsApp and 70 percent for Instagram.
Meanwhile several Twitter users also seem to have experienced difficulties with the service.
According to Downdetector, which tracks online outages, the Facebook outage began at 3:00 PM PT.
It is not clear yet what caused the outage. Reports say Facebook is working on the issue. The Independent said Facebook has not responded to a request for comment.
According to the DailyMail, people in countries including the United States, Morocco, Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil reported outages since 6 p.m.
The social media blackout followed the massive breakdown that several big websites experience a day earlier. The outage, caused by a software bug at US cloud-computing company Fastly, had downed the websites of the likes of Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, BBC, UK government and the White House.
Facebook-Instagram-WhatsApp
The cross-platform integration between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has been in the works, and some experts have speculated that this could pose cause outages. The social media giant is looking to roll out cross-platform messaging between the apps, a move criticized by some experts.
