Facebook, Instagram face technical problems again

Facebook said Friday some users were having problems accessing its apps and services. While some were unable to load their Instagram feeds, others couldn't send messages on Facebook Messenger.

"We're aware that some people and businesses are having trouble accessing our apps and products," the company said in a tweet.

"We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience." 

There were over 800 reported issues with Facebook's messaging platform on Friday, while over 36,000 issues were reported with Instagram, according to web monitoring group Downdetector.

Instagram later tweeted that the problems had been fixed. 

The cause of the latest problems was a configuration change and it impacted users globally, Facebook said in a statement, adding that it was not related to another massive outage of the firm's apps and services just days ago.  

Facebook's difficult week

On Monday, the social media giant suffered a six-hour outage triggered by an error during routine maintenance on its network of data centers.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide were unable to access Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp during that time, underscoring the world's reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant.

Downdetector said Monday's outage was the largest such failure it had ever seen.

Separately, Facebook is also contending with damaging revelations from an ex-employee who has alleged that the company prioritizes profits over public safety.

sri/rt (AFP, Reuters)