Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are all experiencing worldwide outages.
Outages are also being reported on Threads, a social media platform, and Facebook Messenger.
All the applications are owned by the Silicon Valley company Meta.
The issues started just before 5.50pm, according to Downdetector, a website that tracks user reports of telecommunication and internet disruptions.
Nearly an hour later Meta services went down, they now appear to be slowly coming back online – at least, for some users.
Meta said: ‘We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps.
‘We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience.’
The outages are ‘not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering’, the internet watchdog NetBlocks said on X.
At 6.04pm, nearly 24,000 people reported issues with Facebook whether on the app, mobile or desktop versions in the UK alone. The figure dropped to 10,200 at 6.41pm.
Instagram isn’t exactly faring any better. More than 12,000 people have reported outages around that time, too.
The number of users reporting problems with WhatsApp was lower. Going from a little over 9,000 at 5.55pm to 4,500 at 6.10pm.
Some users say they can’t use the service’s app or website at all, post content or see comments. Others can access the site but are finding it runs slowly.
The outages are affecting people globally, with issues reported in Germany, Argentina, Japan and elsewhere.
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