EXPLAINER: What to do when Meta apps are down

Many users of Meta’s platforms were alarmed on the evening of June 12 after experiencing difficulty accessing Facebook and Instagram.

According to Meta communications director Andy Stone, the issue was caused by an outage affecting Meta applications, including Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.

“We’re aware people are currently having trouble accessing our services. We’re working on it,” Stone said on Friday.

Downdetector, an outage-tracking website, recorded at least 80,000 user reports during the disruption, Yahoo Tech reported.

The outage lasted for nearly two hours.

What to do when Meta apps are temporarily down

Tech experts advise the following steps:

• Do not immediately change account settings such as passwords, as this may lead to being locked out once services are restored
• Check your internet connection and other apps to determine if the issue is isolated to Meta platforms
• Verify whether other users are also experiencing similar problems
• Monitor Meta’s service status through official updates

To check the status of Meta services, users can visit outage-tracking sites such as Downdetector or Meta’s official status page at metastatus.com.

According to experts, outages are typically caused by infrastructure or cloud service disruptions, faulty software updates, technical failures, or, in some cases, cyberattacks.

Meta has not issued a detailed official report on the incident, and there is no confirmation that it was linked to a security breach.

Experts also warn that outages can be exploited by scammers. Users are advised to be cautious of unsolicited messages, emails, or posts claiming they can restore account access.—Lyjah Tiffany Bonzo with research from GMA DigiLab/MCG, GMA News