WhatsApp and Instagram restored after outages on Wednesday evening

New Delhi: WhatsApp and Instagram services have been fully restored following a massive outage that affected several Meta-owned platforms on Wednesday evening.

The disruptions started around 18:00 GMT, with users worldwide unable to access or use WhatsApp and Instagram.

According to outage-tracking site Downdetector, over 22,000 people reported issues with accessing or using functionalities on WhatsApp, while more than 18,000 faced similar problems with Instagram. The outage was not limited to any single region but was reported across the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US.

Meta, the parent company of both platforms, acknowledged the issue on X, formerly Twitter, stating, "Thanks for bearing with us! We're 99% of the way there—just doing some last checks. We apologise to those who've been affected by the outage."

By late Wednesday, Meta confirmed that services were almost back to normal, with both WhatsApp and Instagram issuing statements indicating that their services had been restored. WhatsApp announced, "And we're back, happy chatting!" while Instagram added, "Andddd we're back—sorry for the wait, and thanks for bearing with us."