Meta Platforms Inc’s social media apps appeared to be back up after facing a brief disruption in the United States on Wednesday, data on outage tracking website Downdetector.com showed.

At the peak of the outage, more than 17,000 user reports had indicated issues with Instagram in the United States, as of 2352 GMT. Over 13,000 incidents were reported for the Facebook app and outage reports also briefly spiked for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger around the same time.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.

Outages of Big Tech platforms are not uncommon as several companies ranging from Alphabet Inc’s Google to Microsoft Corp have seen service disruptions.

Microsoft was hit with a networking outage earlier on Wednesday that took down its cloud platform Azure along with services such as Teams and Outlook, affecting millions of users globally.

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

Follow Dawn Business on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook for insights on business, finance and tech from Pakistan and across the world.

Opinion

Editorial

Climate choices
Updated 15 Jun, 2026

Climate choices

The country is confronting increasingly volatile weather patterns with consequences for agriculture, infrastructure, public health and economic planning.
Brief opening
15 Jun, 2026

Brief opening

WE have been here before. Throughout the weekend, there was great anticipation that a tentative framework for peace...
Environmental disaster
15 Jun, 2026

Environmental disaster

IT was a heartbreaking sight. A recent news report in these pages carried a picture of a sea turtle lying half ...
Budget presser
Updated 14 Jun, 2026

Budget presser

If the FBR falters, the government will find itself in hot water sooner rather than later.
Muharram precautions
14 Jun, 2026

Muharram precautions

WITH Muharram due to start next week, the authorities have already begun annual exercises to ensure that the ...
Blood bequests
14 Jun, 2026

Blood bequests

WORLD Blood Donor Day offers a moment of “gratitude, advocacy and renewed commitment” for thalassaemia patients...