Thousands of users complained about issues, citing problems with sharing posts and sending messages

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

For many attempting to share Thanksgiving posts on Facebook on Thursday morning, it seemed the social network was not in the holiday mood.

Thousands of users complained about issues with Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram, citing problems with sharing posts and sending messages, according to Down Detector, a website that tracks such outages.

With error messages from Hanoi to Portland, the services seem to be affected across the world.

Twitter seemed to be functioning without glitches, allowing aggrieved users of Facebook and Instagram to share error messages and, sometimes, enjoy the silence.

The Nature Conservancy (@nature_org) #facebookdown ? It's #Thanksgiving! Go outside and show mother nature a little gratitude. 🌳🙌 pic.twitter.com/yUmHTufyzN

It was unclear what caused the problems at Facebook and Instagram but similar challenges have happened before.

As recently as October, both networks and another Facebook product, WhatsApp, were reportedly down for several hours. The apps run off a similar infrastructure and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been working to integrate them further, as he announced earlier this year.

Both Facebook and Instagram released statements on Thursday afternoon.

“Earlier today, an issue in one of our central software systems caused many people to have trouble accessing Facebook’s family of apps,” a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC. “We quickly investigated, started restoring access, and we’re now monitoring for full recovery. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.“



Instagram tweeted: “Gobble gobble, we back. We apologize for the inconvenience and wish #HappyThanksgiving to those who celebrate.”