Facebook says services coming back online

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users faced problems on Monday.

The company said it was “aware that some people are having trouble accessing Facebook app” and it was working on restoring access.”

About six hours later, Facebook tweeted: “We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.” But for some users, WhatsApp was working for a time, then not. For others, Instagram was working but not Facebook, and so on.

Before Facebook’s announcement early Monday evening, users were having a hard time logging in, loading pages, posting, adding friends, liking and refreshing. Thousands of people were experiencing issues, according to Down Detector, but those numbers began to decline around the same time that Facebook announced services were coming back online.

The company did not say what might have caused the outage, which began around 11:40 a.m. 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. Down Detector was swamped with comments from people all over the U.S. complaining about Facebook and Instagram.

The outage came after a Facebook whistleblower appeared on “60 minutes” Sunday and claimed the company knew that its platforms were being used to spread hate, violence, and misinformation, then tried to hide the evidence.

Facebook has pushed back against those allegations. Click here to read more.

Here are some of the comments: