Facebook struck by service disruption, prevents users from posting updates

Users trying to do so were met with an error message that stated: "There was a problem updating your status. Please try again in a few minutes."

"Facebook status update issues are not uncommon, but this one seems global - we've tested it from several IPs and received the same message," technology website Mashable.com reported.

Downrightnow.com, which monitors service outages on major websites, reported at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) that Facebook had encountered a "likely service disruption."

There was no immediate comment from Facebook, but the problem was sufficiently widespread for #facebookdown to become a trending hashtag on Twitter.