Global users are experiencing outages on Facebook, which includes all social networks owned by the company, including Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
When navigating to these websites, a server error will appear – Instagram shows a “5xx Server Error”, which indicates that it is a problem with Facebook’s servers. Users are also unable to send messages or load new content on the mobile apps for these platforms.
Even Facebook’s virtual reality platform Oculus is facing an outage, according to a tweet posted by the platform.
The outage appears to be caused by a failure of a DNS (Domain Name Server) – this is the naming structure that forms the infrastructure of the web. So, if you try to navigate to facebook.com now, the internet won’t know where to find facebook.com.
The trillion dollar company, which has 2.9 billion users, has been down for at least an hour and counting.
At the same time, Facebook’s stock has fallen by about 5.5 percent. It follows a recent drop for the stock as Facebook faces scrutiny in the US Senate after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents to the Wall Street Journal.