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Facebook and Instagram Outage Hits Users Worldwide, Then Recovers

By Drooid · Sep 21, 2026, 10:39 AM UTC · How we work

Summary

Meta Platforms Outage

Meta's Facebook and Instagram suffered an outage that disrupted service for users worldwide on Sunday.
Downdetector logged over 17,000 Facebook and more than 5,000 Instagram reports by 01:11 GMT.
In Singapore, complaints peaked around 9:20 a.m. local time with roughly 220 Facebook and 120 Instagram reports.
Outage reports fell sharply by about 02:00 GMT, indicating that both platforms had largely recovered.

Summary

Meta Platforms No Comment

Meta Platforms did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the September 20 outage.
The technical cause of the September 20 service disruption remained unknown at the time of reporting.
In Singapore, over half of Downdetector complaints concerned website access rather than mobile apps.
Meta’s repeated silence during outages raises questions about its communication strategy with the public and regulators.

History

Historical Context

Meta’s October 4 2021 DNS outage, caused by a BGP route withdrawal, knocked out Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for about five hours and generated over 10 million Downdetector reports. The September 20 2023 repeat global failure revived regulator scrutiny, prompting the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority to weigh tougher service-availability rules for worldwide digital platforms.

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Meta Platforms Outage

Meta's Facebook and Instagram suffered an outage that disrupted service for users worldwide on Sunday.
Downdetector logged over 17,000 Facebook and more than 5,000 Instagram reports by 01:11 GMT.
In Singapore, complaints peaked around 9:20 a.m. local time with roughly 220 Facebook and 120 Instagram reports.
Outage reports fell sharply by about 02:00 GMT, indicating that both platforms had largely recovered.

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