World

Facebook, Instagram recover after outage hits thousands of users

Downdetector records more than 17,000 reports for Facebook and over 5,000 for Instagram at the peak of the disruption

Updated 1 month ago · Published on 21 Sep 2026 3:31PM

Facebook, Instagram recover after outage hits thousands of users
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram recovered after a brief outage disrupted services for thousands of users in the United States - September 21, 2026

META’S Facebook and Instagram recovered after a brief outage disrupted services for thousands of users in the United States, according to Downdetector.com.

The disruption began at about 8.55pm Eastern Time on Sept 20, or 8.55am on Sept 21 Singapore time, with outage reports peaking at more than 17,000 for Facebook and over 5,000 for Instagram.

Reports fell sharply by about 10pm ET, indicating that both platforms had largely recovered.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the cause of the outage.

Downdetector tracks service disruptions by collating status reports from multiple sources, meaning the number of reports does not necessarily represent the actual number of users affected.

In Singapore, Facebook outage reports peaked at 229 at about 9.26am, while Instagram recorded 109 reports at about 9.25am.

Facebook and Instagram experienced a similar disruption in July, when Downdetector recorded as many as 4,808 reports of issues with Facebook and 2,829 with Instagram.

More than half of the reports for both platforms during the latest outage involved problems accessing their websites. - September 21, 2026

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