Late Wednesday, a large number of Instagram users around the world were unable to access the popular photo-sharing platform. According to Downdetector.com, a service outage tracking website, Meta-owned Instagram experienced an outage that affected thousands of users worldwide.
At the peak of the outage, Downdetector reported that over 46,000 users in the United States were having trouble accessing the platform. In addition, over 3,000 users in the United Kingdom and India were affected.
Everyone coming to twitter to confirm instagram is down #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/M88I0cvpvV
— cesar (@jebaiting) March 9, 2023
Downdetector collects outage information by aggregating status reports from multiple sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. While the cause of the outage was not immediately clear, Instagram users reported issues logging in, posting content, and accessing certain app features.
The outage lasted several hours before service was restored, leaving many users frustrated and unable to access the platform. According to the Instagram Comms Twitter account, the incident was caused by a technical issue on Instagram’s end.
Also Read: World Kidney Day 2023: 5 Daily Habits That Can Damage Your Kidneys
The downdetector outage graph showed a spike in reports around 7 a.m. While over 50% of reported outages were due to server connectivity issues, 20% were due to login issues.
Downdetector revealed approximately 2,000 affected users from the United Kingdom, as well as over 1,000 reports from India and Australia.
Earlier tonight, a technical issue caused people to have trouble accessing Instagram. We resolved this issue for everyone as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience. #instagramdown
— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) March 9, 2023
Approximately 81% of users encountered issues while using the Instagram app on their mobile devices. Furthermore, 15% reported website issues, and 5% reported difficulty logging in.
It was also reported that Instagram’s ‘age verification test’ would be expanded to six more countries, including Mexico, Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. The social media player stated that they are working on expanding age verification tools to more countries around the world in the coming months.
