On Super Tuesday, users were left frustrated as Meta’s top social apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, experienced a widespread outage. The outage, which began after 10 AM ET, led to error messages and login issues for users attempting to access the platforms. Meta’s communication director, Andy Stone, acknowledged the problem and assured users that the company was working to resolve the issue.
Key Takeaway
Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, experienced a widespread outage on Super Tuesday, leading to login issues and error messages for users. The timing of the outage raised suspicions, coming on a day with primary elections in multiple U.S. states.
Unprecedented Outage Raises Suspicions
The outage, occurring on a significant day for the U.S. with multiple states holding primary elections, raised suspicions among users. Many questioned the timing of the outage, particularly its impact on last-minute voter outreach efforts and political organizations aiming to encourage voter turnout.
Meta’s Role in Elections
Meta’s suite of apps has played a significant role during election cycles, with a vast user base of 3.98 million monthly active users. To address concerns about its influence on elections, Meta had previously disabled political ads leading up to key elections and announced plans to label political ads with AI-generated imagery for the 2024 election cycle.
Technical Issue Resolved
After a couple of hours, the technical issue was resolved, and Andy Stone issued an apology for any inconvenience caused by the outage. The outage also affected Meta employees, with reports of login issues and disruptions to work-related activities.
