Instagram and Facebook hit by global outage, thousands unable to load feeds or post stories

Meta-owned social media platforms Instagram and Facebook suffered a widespread outage on Sunday, July 19 which left thousands of users across multiple countries unable to access core features of the platforms. Reports of the disruption quickly surged worldwide as users took to other social media platforms to confirm they were experiencing similar issues.

The disruption began around 03:45 AM AST (Atlantic Standard Time) with tens of thousands of incidents logged on Downdetector as users across the Caribbean and around the world reported widespread issues accessing Instagram and Facebook.

ℹ️ Note: Meta platforms including Instagram and Facebook are currently experiencing international outages; incident not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering #InstagramDown #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/XUp3YqjMaN

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) July 19, 2026

Many users attempting to open Facebook were greeted with an error message stating that their account was "currently unavailable due to a site issue," while others were unable to refresh their News Feed or access their profiles. On Instagram, users reported that the app either failed to load content, displayed blank feeds or remained stuck on the loading screen.

Several Instagram users also reported being unable to upload or post Stories with uploads failing to process or remaining stuck indefinitely. Others experienced issues viewing new posts, loading profiles, refreshing feeds and navigating through the application.

Outage-tracking platforms recorded a sharp spike in user reports within a short period which indicated that the disruption was affecting users globally rather than being limited to a specific country or region. Reports emerged from North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and several other parts of the world.

As of publication, Meta had not released an official statement explaining the cause of the outage or provided a timeline for when all services would be fully restored. The reason behind the disruption remains unknown.