Facebook 'down' as thousands report issues with Meta site 'unavailable'

Thousands of UK Facebook and Instagram users reported problems accessing the social media platforms on Sunday morning, with many saying they had been locked out of their accounts. According to Downdetector, which tracks online outages, a sharp rise in reports appeared as users across the UK complained of issues with both the Facebook website and Instagram app.

Issues began being logged around 8:30am and climbed rapidly throughout the morning. As of 9am, Downdetector showed the website itself accounted for 62 per cent of reports, while login problems came to 22 per cent, and Feed and Timeline issues reached eight per cent. By 9:03am, Downdetector had logged 1,380 reports.

Users attempting to access Facebook on computers encountered an error message stating: "Account Temporarily Unavailable Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue We expect this to be resolved shortly Please try again in a few minutes."

Over 5,000 Facebook reports and over 1,000 Instagram reports were logged on Downdetector in the UK. Account holders throughout the UK experienced issues, with particular hotspots identified in Glasgow and London, while cities including Birmingham, Hull and Brighton were also affected.

Some Facebook users noted the mobile app continued to work normally. Instagram users reported widespread disruption, with some initially fearing they had been hacked after being unexpectedly logged out. One user said: "It logged me out of my account and it took me like five minutes to get back in I got so scared."

Frustrated customers vented their frustration online. One posted on X: "I m getting this error message on Facebook in both Safari and Chrome on my laptop Is anyone else experiencing the same issue?"

The disruption was not limited to the UK. Users in Perth, Australia, Texas and Myanmar also reported identical experiences. Meta had not yet publicly commented on the reported issues.