Facebook, Instagram Had A Major Outage, And A Worldwide Existential Crisis Ensued

The worldwide outage of the popular social media platforms, including Snapchat, sent everyone into a tailspin.
Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat saw worldwide outages on Wednesday.
Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat saw worldwide outages on Wednesday.
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

Facebook and Instagram experienced an hourslong outage across the U.S. on Wednesday, and throngs of social media-savvy citizens experienced an existential crisis.

In the absence of the extremely popular platforms, many flooded Twitter to celebrate, despair or express deep suspicions over the outages.

Snapchat, another popular encrypted messaging app, was also down on Wednesday.

Retired twitter users coming back to Twitter to complain about Facebook like....... #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/pI75HdN03j

— BossLogic (@Bosslogic) March 13, 2019

Literally anyone who manages social media accounts right now. #FacebookDown #InstagramDown pic.twitter.com/TX6ve4tYjM

— Shara Howard (@HowardShara) March 13, 2019

Marked Safe from Facebook Outage Today...

Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers and phone calls. We will rebuild. #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/S2aPRKB0DA

— Karen Johnson (@kjohn3480) March 13, 2019

If you didn’t believe in mercury retrograde, today is the day to do so #instagramdown #facebookdown #whatsappdown #mercuryRetrogade

— Teeshay (@teeshays) March 14, 2019

In the last 12 hours, YouTube, Gmail, Google Drive, Facebook and Instagram have gone down or been so incapacitated they did not work properly.

This cannot be a coincidence. Are we under hack attack? #facebookdown

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 13, 2019

During those hours, some in the U.S. who tried to log into Facebook found themselves confronted with a note that said the company was down for “required maintenance” and that “Facebook Will Be Back Soon.”

Ironically, Facebook employees also turned to Twitter to let users know that there was an issue.

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps,” the company tweeted. “We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

Instagram issued a similar tweet, saying it knew the situation was “frustrating” and that the company was hard at work to resolve it.

Facebook announced that their team of experts are aware of issues and are fixing them as we speak. #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/9D6YZE2tX4

— Jeff Frye (@JefferyFrye) March 14, 2019

Americans sure do love their Facebook pic.twitter.com/W8XUuFvVV1

— Gene Park (@GenePark) March 13, 2019

Some people suspected that the outages indicated there was a sweeping cyberattack on the social media sites. Facebook quickly addressed the rumors, assuring users that the site blackouts were not an attack.

And while access to Facebook and Instagram were restored for some users, the many still left out continue to air their grievances on good ol’ occasionally trusty Twitter.

MySpace rushing to see if any new accounts joined: #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/U0u0HnXc8X

— i dont even like you. (@perlacozart11) March 14, 2019

This scene from The Social Network becomes more ironic each time #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/LIkVbVsCJu

— Andrew Brown (@AndrewBrownAU) March 13, 2019

welcome all you beautiful instagram exiles we’re ugly and mean here

— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) March 13, 2019
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