Instagram Down? Thousands of Users Report Issues Accessing Meta's Photo and Video Sharing Service

Instagram was down for thousands of users globally on Thursday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

More than 46,000 users reported issues with accessing the photo-sharing platform in the US at the peak of the outage, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.

Downdetector showed about 2,000 affected users from the UK, and more than 1,000 reports each from India and Australia.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Last month, Meta Platforms' Oversight Board announced that it would review more types of content moderation cases and expedite some decisions, as it aims to expand its work.

The Oversight Board was created in late 2020 to review Facebook and Instagram's decisions on taking down or leaving up certain content and make rulings on whether to uphold or overturn the social media company's actions. Since then, the board has published 35 case decisions, it said in a blog post.

The board, which has 22 members, said it will now begin publishing decisions on some cases on an expedited basis. Rulings could come as quickly as 48 hours after accepting a case, while others could take up to 30 days.

Standard decisions, in which the Oversight Board reviews Meta's content moderation actions in depth, can take up to 90 days.

Publishing more decisions and increasing the pace will "let us tackle more of the big challenges of content moderation, and respond more quickly in situations with urgent real-world consequences," the board said in the blog post.

© Thomson Reuters 2023