Millions of users around the world, including many in the Philippines, experienced problems accessing Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and other Meta platforms on Friday night due to a widespread outage.
Users reported being suddenly logged out of their Facebook accounts, while others were unable to send messages, refresh feeds, or access certain features on Meta’s social media platforms.
The disruption triggered confusion among users, with many initially fearing that their accounts had been hacked.
“Hindi niyo rin ba ma-refresh ang FB niyo?” one user asked.
“Na-hack din ba kayo ni Meta? I was logged out and I thought I was hacked,” another posted after Meta restored services.
According to outage tracking website Downdetector, Facebook recorded more than 113,000 reports of service disruptions at the peak of the outage. Instagram also received thousands of reports from affected users.
The outage was reported in several countries, including the Philippines, the United States, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged the problem and said the company was working to restore services.
“We’re coming back, though it may take a bit of time for everything to be fully back to normal,” Stone said in a post.
The outage also affected some business services operated by Meta, including advertising tools and messaging platforms used by companies.
By late evening, many users reported that Facebook and Messenger services had begun returning to normal, although some continued to experience intermittent issues.
As of Friday, Meta had not disclosed the cause of the outage. The company said it was investigating the incident and working to fully restore all affected services.
Facebook remains one of the most widely used social media platforms in the Philippines, where millions rely on it daily for communication, news, business transactions, and community updates.
