On the late evening of March 5, a flood of complaints surfaced regarding issues with Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Threads.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged the problem, stating, “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now,” in a post on X social media platform.
By 11:29 pm, there were 13,083 local reports of Facebook problems, with 75 percent mentioning login difficulties. Concurrently, Facebook Messenger received 175 reports by 11:32 pm, while Instagram faced over 4,000 issues. Threads, another Meta-operated app, had 867 local reports on Downdetector by 11:24 pm.
Many users were logged out unexpectedly, exacerbating the situation. Users were thinking their accounts had been hacked and tried to reset their passwords, complicating matters. The hashtag #facebookdown rapidly gained traction on social media platform X, with over 73,000 posts. Users expressed concerns about potential hacking as they found themselves locked out of their Facebook accounts.
