Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram faced a major global outage on Monday evening with thousands of users, including from India, not being able to use these digital platforms.
Facebook owns photosharing platform Instagram and messaging platform WhatsApp.
The outage is estimated to have started around 9 PM IST. Users complained of not being able to use any of the three services.
"We are aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience," a Facebook spokesperson said.
The company did not specify the reason for the global outage.
A tweet shared by Instagram said: "Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we're on it! #instagramdown".
Microblogging platform Twitter was abuzz with tweets about the outage as netizens shared posts and memes about the outage.
India has one of the highest number of users of Facebook as well as its other platforms.
As per government data shared earlier this year, India has 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook users and 21 crore Instagram users.
The company said it was aware that some people are having trouble accessing Facebook app and it was working on restoring access.
The company did not say what might be causing the outage, which began around 11:45 ET. It is normal for websites and apps to suffer outages, though one on a global scale is rare. Users reported being unable to access Facebook in California, New York and Europe.
Facebook is going through a major crisis after the whistleblower who was the source of The Wall Street Journal's series of stories exposing the company's awareness of internal research into the negative effects of its products and decisions went public on 60 Minutes" on Sunday.
Frances Haugen was identified in a 60 Minutes interview Sunday as the woman who anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement that the company's own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation, leads to increased polarization and that Instagram, specifically, can harm teenage girls' mental health.
The Journal's stories, called The Facebook Files, painted a picture of a company focused on growth and its own interests instead of the public good. Facebook has tried to play down the research. Nick Clegg, Clegg, the company's vice president of policy and public affairs, wrote to Facebook employees in a memo Friday that social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out.
