WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram are Down for Many Users

     Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp went down this morning: leaving millions worldwide without access to the social media apps and messaging platforms.

     Instagram and WhatsApp are both owned by Facebook, which bought the platforms in 2012 and 2014, respectively.

     Today at noon, Down Detector, a website that tracks outages, showed more than 80,000 user reported that Facebook was down, more than 60,000 user reported that Instagram was not working, and more than 20,000 users reported that they could not send or receive messages on WhatsApp, starting at 11:44am, after which time all messages sent are stuck in the outboxes of the users of the messaging platforms.

     Instead of seeing their normal Instagram feeds, users of the social media site reported seeing blank screens that included messages of a "5xx server error."

     Facebook has been issuing its standard message for technical glitches, which informs users that "something went wrong" and the platform would "get it fixed as soon as we can."

     While some users could launch the WhatsApp mobile application, the connection to their phones could not be established: leaving many without an easy and convenient way to communicate.