Facebook, Instagram suffer worldwide outages
Bad news if you want to post a pic of breakfast or check your newsfeed this morning: two of the planet's most popular social networks are having problems.
UPDATE 7am: Facebook and Instagram now appear to be back online for most users. Western Civilization can resume.
EARLIER: Bad news if you want to post a pic of breakfast or check your newsfeed this morning: two of the planet's most popular social networks are having problems.
Many users around the world have been unable to use Facebook since around 4.00am this morning.
Sites like Down Detector have fielded reports from US, UK, Australian users unable to access the social network. Here, your own correspondent has been unable to access Facebook.
Some report only a blank screen loads. Others that their newsfeed or ability to post is not working. The mobile version of Facebook seems less affected than desktop.
Sister site Instagram (owned by Facebook since 2012) is also having issues, though they seem to be affecting fewer people.
It is difficult to gauge how many users are affected as Facebook has yet to issue any statement via its usual NZ media channels, and the company's Twitter feed has not posted an update.
One US tech site quotes a Facebook rep saying "We're aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."
Facebook's developer site has a post headlined "Degraded API performance," which says, in total: "We are currently experiencing an increased level of API errors. We are investigating the cause and we'll post updates when we have more information." (An API, or application programming interface, controls how two pieces of software interact with each other.)
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Facebook, Instagram suffer worldwide outages
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