‘Practice Run For November?’ Social Media Sites Go Dark On Super Tuesday

(Congress Report) – The world, it seems, almost came to an end on Tuesday, as both Facebook and Instagram suffered from massive outages that left millions of users unable to access their social media accounts. Just imagine all of the panic from people who normally use these platforms to share news, especially on an important day like Super Tuesday here in the United States. When they go down, it can cause a bit of chaos and frustration.

Along with these two, Threads, which is essentially the Instagram version of X, and Facebook Messenger also had problems. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, experienced a small outage that affected a few hundred users.

“Within half an hour of the issues first appearing on Down Detector, at around 3pm, the number of reports had passed 90,000 for Facebook, and 15,000 for Instagram. At its peak, more than 250,000 UK Facebook users reported issues, while in the US more than half a million users reported the outage,” Metro reported. “On Down Detector, 40% of reports cited login issues, after users could not load the apps or websites as normal. Facebook users found they were logged out whilst Instagram refused to work at all.”

Many individuals immediately assumed the platforms went down due to a cyber attack, but that does not appear to be the case, as the problem came from the login system. The Facebook outage impacted all platforms, however, 89 percent of the reports that came in concerning Instagram highlighted issues with the app, as it has a lot less desktop users than Facebook.

Folks ran to X in order to complain, with quite a few individuals worried they had been hacked. Given the state of cyber warfare in our modern world, this fear is understandable. There are a lot of people who are skilled at hacking, determined to make life difficult for others while attempting to make money without having a real job.

Ann Autumn stated in a post, “My hands are shaking so much right now I can barely type. And my heart is pounding. I couldn’t get into Facebook and I was sure that my account was hacked. But Twitter peeps are confirming the #facebookdown situation. #instagramdown as well. So relieved that it’s not just me.”

My hands are shaking so much right now I can barely type. And my heart is pounding. I couldn't get into Facebook and I was sure that my account was hacked. But Twitter peeps are confirming the #facebookdown situation. #instagramdown as well. So relieved that it's not just me.

— Ann Autumn (@The_LadyAnn) March 5, 2024

‘Kaye Fordtography’ wrote: “Is Meta down or am I being hacked? 😂”

Is meta down or am I being hacked? 😂 my instagram isn’t loading and my facebook is also “session logged out”

— Kaye Fordtography 📸 (@Fordtography) March 5, 2024

As a result of all the messages coming in, Meta took to its corporate X account, posting that they were aware of the problems and working on a solution.

We're aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.

— Andy Stone (@andymstone) March 5, 2024

Users here in the United States were more than a little suspicious concerning the timing of the outages, noting that it was Super Tuesday and a large number of primary races were being held throughout the day.

What a coincidence that Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube are down on Super Tuesday

Practice run for November? pic.twitter.com/5rIu1pQAE4

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) March 5, 2024

‘News Nomad’ remarked, “They’re showing us what they can do in real-time.”

They’re showing us what they can do in real-time

— News Nomad 🗞 (@The_Nomad_News) March 5, 2024

“Take down internet service in red areas on Nov. 5 for machines they swore up and down had no way to connect to the internet,” ‘UnipartyBomber’ posted.

Take down internet service in red areas on Nov. 5 for machines they swore up and down had no way to connect to the internet.

— UnipartyBomber (@magajcs) March 5, 2024

“Super strange, isn’t it? No way for word to get out about polling location concerns – except for X,” said another.

Super strange, isn't it?

No way for word to get out about polling location concerns – except for X.

— Laurie (@laurieinri) March 5, 2024

Elon Musk, owner of X, couldn’t resist taking a jab at Facebook during the situation saying, “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.”