Meta-owned Instagram hit by brief outage, users report login and app issues
New Delhi, Dec 28
Meta-owned social media platform Instagram on Sunday faced a brief outage for several users, mainly in the United States, with complaints peaking in the early hours.
According to outage-tracking website Downdetector data, reports of problems peaked at around 4:10 a.m. EST, when over 180 users flagged issues related to accessing the popular photo and video-sharing app.
Many users said they were unable to log in or load content on Instagram during the disruption.
Several users also took to other social media platforms to share screenshots of the issue they were facing.
The images showed a blank screen along with a circular refresh icon, without any specific error message displayed on the app.
Downdetector data showed that 45 per cent of affected users complained about app-related issues, while 41 per cent reported login problems.
Another 14 per cent said they were facing issues with the feed or timeline not loading properly.
The outage, however, appeared to have a very limited impact in India. According to Downdetector, only around 10 users in the country reported problems while accessing Instagram, suggesting that the issue was largely restricted to certain regions.
Meta has not issued any official statement so far regarding the reason behind the outage or the duration of the disruption.
Social media platforms flooded with users' reaction. One user commented "Is insta down??.
Another user commented "Jimin really got that Insta baddie aesthetic down."
This is not the first time a Meta-owned platform has faced technical issues. Earlier this year, WhatsApp experienced multiple outages that affected users globally, including in India.
In one such incident in September, thousands of users were unable to send messages or upload status updates, prompting widespread complaints on social media.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Only 10 users in India reported? That's surprising. My feed was acting a bit slow around that time, but I just restarted the app and it worked. Maybe we are used to patchy internet and don't report minor glitches as outages!
Working in IT, I see this differently. A brief outage affecting a small number of users at 4 AM EST is actually a good sign of their system's resilience. It was contained and resolved quickly. No platform has 100% uptime.
It's funny how people immediately run to other social media to complain when one goes down. We're all so addicted! But seriously, when WhatsApp had that outage in September, it was chaos. My college group was unusable.
Shows how dependent the world is on a few American tech giants. Maybe it's time for India to seriously push for and support our own homegrown social media platforms. We have the talent.
The article mentions the peak was at 4:10 AM EST, which is like 2:40 PM in India. I was definitely scrolling during my lunch break and didn't notice a thing. Guess we got lucky this time!
We welcome thoughtful discussions from our readers. Please keep comments respectful and on-topic.