Facebook, Instagram go down again as its 2018 struggles continue

Eli Blumenthal | USA TODAY

For Facebook, 2019 seemingly cannot come fast enough.

Just over a week since a "routine test" took the social networking giant offline for many, Facebook and Instagram both went offline for many users early Tuesday.

A Facebook developer page seemed to confirm that the company was aware of the issue, with Facebook developer Marissa Hoek posting that the company was "currently experiencing issues that may cause some API requests to take longer or fail unexpectedly. We are investigating the issue and working on a resolution."

In a statement provided to USA TODAY, the company confirmed the issues were affecting several of its products. "We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

As is often the case, the hashtags #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown quickly became trending topics on Twitter in the U.S., with #FacebookDown rising to the top of the international trending topics page as frustrated users went online to share their feelings and experiences.

The first thing I do when I notice a glitch in Facebook or Instagram is come on to Twitter and look for a trending topic.



Ah, there's #FacebookDown. Right on time. pic.twitter.com/D5jk62Tsqo — James Michael Sama (@JamesMSama) November 20, 2018

Facebook is down. Hello everyone. Welcome to Twitter. It's nice you could join us. #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/qqeGa3AwAS — Rob Jeffries (@RobJeffries) November 20, 2018

Both Facebook and Instagram are not working this morning. What will we do?!?!? Come talk to our friends on Twitter of course! Good morning! Happy Tuesday! #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/hXSOheo6y1 — TN Dept. of Health (@TNDeptofHealth) November 20, 2018

*instagram down*

me: *immediately open twitter to tweet about this*#instagramdown — 𝖏𝖊𝖓𝖆 ♡彡 (@sunkissedhcney) November 20, 2018

While Facebook was noticeably slower at around 9 a.m. Tuesday, it did seem to work fine in New York and Los Angeles, though some in Virginia reported still having issues with Instagram.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp seemed to be fine.

The website Down Detector, an independent group that tracks website performance, showed Facebook having issues along the east coast of the U.S. and in much of western Europe.

A map of Instagram showed similar issues, though Instagram's troubles seemed to also hit a larger number of people on the west coast.

It has been a rough month for Facebook. In addition to the outages, the company is still fighting its fake news problems as removed more than 100 accounts on the eve of the midterm elections. It is also battling a new storm of controversy after a New York Times story about how the company's leaders have handled controversies after the 2016 election.

Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal