Facebook Suffers Major Outage, Locking Out Thousands of Users Worldwide

Thousands of Facebook users reported problems accessing the social media platform on Sunday, July 19, after a major outage affected desktop users in several countries, including Kenya.

Many users said they could not log into their Facebook accounts through web browsers.

Instead, they received messages saying their accounts were temporarily unavailable due to a site issue and were advised to try again later.

Some users also reported seeing error messages claiming that their accounts could not be found, raising confusion and prompting many to take to other social media platforms to confirm whether the service was down.

“Your account is temporarily unavailable. Due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes,” read a statement on the homepage for a browser.

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Facebook Desktop Users Are Most Affected

The disruption appeared to affect desktop browsers more than the Facebook mobile app.

Many users on Windows computers experienced login failures, while others said the mobile application continued to work normally.

The outage triggered widespread complaints online as users waited for the platform to return to normal.

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Instagram Also Hit by Outage

The disruption was not limited to Facebook. Instagram, another platform owned by Meta, also experienced a major outage, with thousands of users around the world reporting problems accessing their accounts.

According to the live outage tracker Downdetector, reports of issues on Instagram rose sharply, suggesting a sudden and widespread technical problem rather than a gradual slowdown in service.

Meta Yet to Comment

By the time of publication, Meta had not released an official statement explaining the cause of the outage or when normal service would be fully restored.

Users are advised to wait for official updates from Meta and avoid making unnecessary changes to their account settings while the issue is being resolved.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg During a News Conference at the Company’s Headquarters in October 6,2010
PHOTO/AFP