Instagram Back Up After Global Outage Hits Over 1,80,000 Users; Company Blames ‘Technical Issue’

Meta Platform's Instagram was back up for most users, the company said on Sunday, after a technical issue that disrupted services to thousands of people had been resolved.

"Earlier today, a technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted," a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.

The company did not disclose the number of users affected by the disruption. Outage tracking website Downdetector.com showed more than 100,000 incidents in the United States, 24,000 in Canada and over 56,000 in Britain.

More than 180,000 users reported issues with accessing Instagram at the peak of the outage.

Instagram was down for some users on Sunday from around 5:45 p.m. EST (2145 GMT), according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. The number of outages eased to just over 7,000 reports as of 8:30 p.m. EST.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources, including users.

According to a recent report, Instagram is planning to release a text-based app that will compete with Twitter and may debut as soon as June, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Facebook parent is testing the product with influencers and some creators, according to the report.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Meta has been contacting talent agencies and celebrities to gauge their interest in trying an early version of the app, which will be integrated with Instagram, said Alex Heath in a newsletter.

The report also mentions that the parent company Meta has made the new app secretly available to select creators for months. It is said to be separate from Instagram yet allow people to connect accounts.

© Thomson Reuters 2023