Facebook and Instagram hit by global outage, leaving users locked out

• Thousands of users reported problems accessing Facebook and Instagram.
• Many users experienced sudden logouts and login failures.
• Meta confirmed it is aware of the issue and is investigating.

Facebook and Instagram suffered a widespread outage on June 12, leaving thousands of users unable to access their accounts as Meta scrambled to resolve the disruption.

The Meta outage affected users across several countries, with many reporting login failures, unexpected logouts and error messages on both mobile apps and desktop websites. The problems quickly triggered a surge in reports on outage-tracking platform Downdetector, making "Facebook outage" and "Instagram outage" among the most searched technology topics as users tried to determine whether the issue was local or global.

Many Facebook users were greeted with messages stating that "something went wrong", while others found themselves automatically logged out and unable to sign back in. Some reported receiving "unexpected error" or "query error" notifications when attempting to access their accounts.

When feeds suddenly stopped loading

Reports of disruption began emerging during the evening, with complaints rising rapidly across multiple regions including the UK, India, the US, Canada, Australia and the Philippines.

According to Downdetector data, reports relating to Instagram climbed above 7,500 during the peak of the disruption, while Facebook also recorded a significant spike in complaints from users struggling to access the platform.

The outage appeared to affect both mobile and desktop services, although some Instagram users said the mobile application remained partially functional while the desktop version experienced loading issues.

Meta also faced disruptions on the business side of its operations. The company's service status page reportedly showed significant issues affecting Facebook Ads Manager, potentially limiting advertisers' ability to create, edit or monitor advertising campaigns.

Meta acknowledges the problem

Meta confirmed it was aware of the disruption but did not immediately provide details on what caused the outage.

Andy Stone, a spokesperson for the company, reportedly said in a post on X that Meta was aware people were having trouble accessing its services and that teams were working to restore normal operations.

Some users also reported issues with WhatsApp, although the extent of those disruptions remained unclear.

The outage prompted concern among users who feared they had been hacked after being unexpectedly logged out of their accounts. However, there was no indication that the problems were linked to a security breach. Instead, the errors appeared to be connected to the wider technical issue affecting Meta's platforms.

For businesses that rely on Facebook and Instagram for marketing and customer engagement, even a short outage can disrupt advertising activity and communication with customers.

Meta had not provided an estimated timeline for a full recovery. While many users were waiting for services to return, outage-tracking websites continued to monitor reports as engineers worked to resolve the issue.

The latest disruption serves as a reminder of how heavily millions of people and businesses now depend on a small number of digital platforms for communication, advertising and day-to-day online activity.