Facebook resolves service disruption issue

(AFP PHOTO LOIC VENANCE)

Facebook experienced technical difficulties on Thursday that slowed its website to a crawl or blocked off access for some of its 500 million users, a glitch that has since been resolved.

A separate Facebook feature integrated into other websites, allowing visitors to "like" particular articles or videos, also appeared to be affected by the problem, according to media reports.

Facebook would not say what caused the disruption, saying in a statement that the company was experiencing "some site issues causing Facebook to be slow or unavailable to some users."

"The issue has been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook," it said in an afternoon statement without elaborating.