Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and more down as world’s biggest websites hit by outage

Etsy, the US Postal Service and many more sites not working properly

Facebook, Instagram, Etsy and US postal taken down amid major outages

The world’s biggest websites were hit by a series of outages yesterday in a significant global internet problem.

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and more were all suffering from problems that stopped people getting online through websites and apps.

It is not clear if the outages were connected. But they all mysteriously began at the same time, and were being felt across the world.

Recap the events as they happened with our live blog below

[14 March 2019 02:38 · Andrew Griffin]

Will Smith is celebrating. It looks like civilisation is gradually getting itself back in order.

[14 March 2019 02:43 · Andrew Griffin]

You know, it's a cliche, that you don't know what you have until it's gone. But I truly never thought I'd miss Instagram and Facebook. Yet here I am, tentatively ecstatic at the fact two of the most controversial websites in the world are back online.

Obviously we're not there yet, but I just wanted to say: it's been a privilege going on this journey with y'all. Follow along on my Twitter at _andrew_griffin, where we can reminisce in the weeks and months to come, about this very very dark night, when the light of IG and FB were snuffed out; and when that morning arrived, and the blazing sun fell upon those cinders and brought them back to life, and the flames roared brighter than ever, and we were able to post selfies and sunsets once again.

[14 March 2019 02:46 · Andrew Griffin]

The rough consensus seems to be that Instagram is mostly back to normal, but that Facebook is still having issues. Will keep you updated

[14 March 2019 03:00 · Andrew Griffin]

The Google searches are definitely dropping off:

And the reports on Down Detector seem to be doing the same, though from a very high base. These sorts of scores would be very, very high usually – but this has not been a usual kind of a day.

Almost all of the posts on the "Instagram" hashtag/search on Twitter are showing people saying that it's working, too. Facebook is harder to track because it tends to be busier and a bit messier.

[14 March 2019 03:02 · Andrew Griffin]

Not quite sure Instagram realises what it's done.

[14 March 2019 03:04 · Andrew Griffin]

This is a very common sentiment: people who are bidding farewell to their Twitter accounts, until the next time everything breaks and they need to come back on them again.

It's only fair to mention that there do appear to be some people who've enjoyed their brief holiday on Twitter so much that they plan to stay. But there seems to be a lot fewer of them. 

[14 March 2019 03:09 · Andrew Griffin]

OK. I think that's it: people are getting back online, and if your Facebook or Instagram isn't working yet I think it will be very soon. With that, I'll sign off for the night. (I'll be back if it doesn't actually fix itself – but I hope not.)

It's been great. See you around next time a social network or three decided to break down.

[14 March 2019 03:11 · Andrew Griffin]

The outage has been the most significant ever to hit Facebook: lasting half a day, it was much longer than any issue ever to hit it before, even in its early days. It will have cost tens of millions of dollars in lost revenues, as well as a host of other headaches. And it's still not clear what actually caused it: Facebook has refused to give any updates during the process, apart from to make a statement about what the problem wasn't.

At the same time, it has raised all sorts of questions about the internet. It seems to prove right those who argue that it is dangerous that Facebook owns most of the world's biggest websites, and is trying to integrate them together more tightly. And it has led people to wonder whether these social networks should be trusted quite so much, to stay up and to keep your data safe.

[14 March 2019 03:16 · Andrew Griffin]

Good night! Enjoy Facebook and Instagram!