Meta blames the massive outage on a ‘technical issue’ but won’t say what caused the problems after hundreds of thousands of people reported being unable to use Facebook, Instagram and Messenger

Meta revealed that the massive outage affecting Facebook, Instagram and Messenger was caused by ‘technical issues’ – but did not share exactly what the ‘issues’ are.

Mark Zuckerberg’s platforms were offline for at least two and a half hours on Tuesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of users unable to access their accounts.

A Facebook insider told DailyMail.com that their internal systems were down at the time, with Meta’s service dashboard showing “major disruptions” to many of its services.

An internal issue would disable connections – similar to what happened in 2021 when all Meta platforms were down for seven hours.

Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, posted to We have resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone affected, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

However, the post attracted many users who called for an explanation of what was behind the problems.

Steen has not yet responded to any comments.

While it is not clear which internal tools may have caused the outage, such technologies are the backbone of organizations.

It is internally focused software developed and used within an organization to streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and provide employees with the information they need to make informed decisions.

A small mistake, like adding the wrong code or command, could have disabled Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

That’s what caused the seven-hour outage in 2021, which saw Zuckerberg lose about $7 billion in the carnage.

“Our engineering teams discovered that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that disrupted this communication,” Facebook shared about the 2021 issues.

“This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a standstill.”

However, Meta has yet to tell the world what caused today’s outage.

The issues appeared around 10:20 am ET (3:20 pm GMT) and affected both apps and websites – although Meta’s WhatsApp was unaffected.

Angry users were suddenly deleted from their accounts, leading them to believe they had been hacked and their personal information stolen.

Meanwhile, the news feed on Instagram started showing an error message.

Most problem reports mention problems with the apps: 72 percent for Facebook, 64 percent for Instagram and Messenger is 50 percent.

DownDetector, which monitors online outages, showed that in the US alone, hundreds of thousands of people had problems with Facebook and tens of thousands reported the same with Instagram, while Messenger had a few thousand problem reports.

Along with the US, the outage also reached Britain, parts of Europe, China, Australia and Mexico, causing Meta’s share price to fall.

Users flocked to X (Twitter) to complain about the outage and share memes, much to the delight of owner Elon Musk.

Some people experiencing problems initially thought their accounts had been hacked, but there are more than 80,000 messages on X about Facebook and Instagram being down.

Musk responded to Meta’s outage with a message on X: “If you are reading this message, it is because our servers are working.”

DailyMail.com also found that two-factor authentication (2FA) – which sends a text message with a code to a user’s phone to log in – wasn’t working.

While the Facebook insider told DailyMail.com that the issue stemmed from internal tools, the public has shared their speculation about X.

Some suggested the outage is a “cyber attack,” as is the case on Super Tuesday, the day when several states will hold presidential primaries.

Jake Moore, technical expert and security consultant at ESET, said a cyber attack is unlikely but not impossible.

“Facebook has a history of decline, but this could be for a long list of reasons,” he told MailOnline.

“While it is very unlikely that this is a cyber attack, it can never be completely ruled out, but it is much more likely that it is yet another internal network problem.”

Kerri Lisenbigler, editor at TheRevOpsTeam, said the outage was “annoying” but probably “nothing too serious.”

“It’s not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last,” she told MailOnline.

‘Major platforms like Facebook and Instagram (and now Threads) manage a huge amount of traffic and data every hour of the day.

“This means that a small glitch or human error in the server room can easily turn into an outage affecting millions of users.

“These things are only really worrying if Meta’s teams fail to get everything back online within a few hours, then people start speculating about the possibility of a cyber attack.”