INSTAGRAM users have been spooked after a Meta outage led them to believe that they’d been hacked.
Nearly 130,000 users in the UK and US alone say their Instagram app has crashed at about 3:30pm GMT, according to popular down-site DownDetector.
- Facebook down updates — Meta platform hit with global outage as thousands of users also report Instagram issues
Users are unable to refresh their feed for new content and are unable to post.
When refreshing their feed, users are simply told: “Couldn’t refresh feed” or “No internet connection”.
When trying to post, users are met with the message: “Something went wrong. Please try again later.”
If using the Instagram camera to use effects or make a Reel, users see a pop-up saying: “Effects couldn’t load. Please check your network connection and try again.”
Has my Instagram been hacked?
Users are not even able to see their own pictures, which is likely what sparked hacking fears.
“The social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, both owned by Meta, are currently experiencing an outage,” one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“If you are having trouble logging in, there is no need to panic, you didn’t get hacked (I panicked too).”
Another tweeted: “Is Meta down or am I being hacked? My Instagram isn’t loading and my Facebook is also “session logged out”.
When will Instagram be fixed?
The outage has affected both Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook.
But it’s unclear when either platform will be back operating as normal.
Meta is aware of the issue affecting both Instagram and Facebook.
In a message on X, Meta’s Andy Stone wrote: “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now.”
How to check if Instagram is working
Instagram’s official Twitter page is a good first port of call.
The company’s InstagramComms page usually tweets out any information about the latest issues and outages.
Another thing people tend to do is tweet about problems themselves.
So, have a search on Twitter – that way you’ll at least know whether it’s something only you are experiencing or something much bigger.
What to do if Instagram is down
The best thing to do is relaunch the app.
Force quit Instagram by sliding up and then dismissing the app so it closes entirely.
See if it then reloads.
It could also be a problem with your connection, so see if something else like a web page loads for you – if that doesn’t load, it’s an issue with your internet.
And if you’re still having problems after all this, it’s time to work out whether you’re alone in all this.
Do a search on Twitter to see if others are complaining about the same thing.
Should you see a load of tweets about Instagram being down, then you have your answer.
In which case, the only thing you can do is wait for it to be fixed and check the options above for updates.
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