Facebook and Instagram experienced widespread service disruptions late Sunday, with thousands of users reporting problems accessing the Meta owned social media platforms in the United States.

Outage tracking service Downdetector recorded more than 17,000 reports involving Facebook at around 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time, while Instagram received more than 5,000 reports around the same period.

The disruption extended into early Monday GMT as users reported difficulties accessing services on the two major social media platforms.

Meta had not publicly explained the cause of the outage at the time of the initial reports.

THOUSANDS REPORT FACEBOOK PROBLEMS

Reports involving Facebook climbed into the thousands as users encountered problems with the platform.

Downdetector showed more than 17,000 reports at approximately 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday.

Instagram was also affected, with more than 5,000 reports recorded around the same time.

The figures represented reports submitted to Downdetector and should not be interpreted as the total number of people affected.

Actual disruption can be considerably larger because only a fraction of users experiencing problems typically submit reports to outage tracking services.

META HAS NOT ANNOUNCED CAUSE

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had not publicly provided an explanation for the disruption at the time of Reuters' report.

It was therefore unclear whether the problems resulted from a technical malfunction, infrastructure issue or another cause.

There was also no immediate indication of a cybersecurity incident.

Without confirmation from Meta, claims circulating online about the cause of the disruption remain unverified.

USERS TURN TO OTHER PLATFORMS

Major social media outages often lead users to alternative platforms to determine whether problems are affecting their individual accounts or the wider service.

Reports of difficulties with Facebook and Instagram quickly attracted attention online as users attempted to establish the scale of the disruption.

The two services are among the world's largest social media platforms and are used by individuals, businesses, media organisations and advertisers.

Even relatively short disruptions can therefore affect communications and commercial activity across multiple markets.

OUTAGE NUMBERS CAN CHANGE QUICKLY

Downdetector identifies possible service disruptions by collecting status reports from several sources, including submissions from users.

The number of reports can rise sharply during the early stages of an outage before declining as services recover.

The figures of more than 17,000 Facebook reports and more than 5,000 Instagram reports therefore represent a snapshot of reported problems at approximately 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time.

They do not represent a confirmed total of affected accounts.

ATTENTION TURNS TO META

It was not immediately clear how long the disruption would last or when normal access would be fully restored.

Meta had not announced the technical cause of the problems at the time of the initial report.

Further information from the company is expected to provide greater clarity about what caused the disruption and the extent of the impact.

Until then, the outage remains a developing story.