Is Instagram Down? OMG, Says Extremely Worried World
Nothing brings people together like technical difficulties.
The social media platform Instagram began suffering widespread outages on Friday afternoon. In a stunning display of camaraderie, thousands took to the internet to commiserate about the inaccessible service.
On the website downdetector.com, nearly 2,500 people at time of writing reported having connectivity problems with Instagram beginning at 1:29 p.m. Eastern Time. The outage appears to be worldwide, with the highest concentration of reports coming from Western Europe and the northeast United States.
In the comments on Down Detector, many people said that they were unable to upload photos, post comments, or even see their social feeds. An Inverse staffer also experienced problems on Friday, citing an inability to refresh Instagram stories. Some people have also said that some of their older posts appear to have been deleted. One person took the opportunity to self promote in the truest possible expression of the Instagram ethos.
The apparent technical difficulties come a day after Instagram announced that it was altering its social feed algorithm to give preference to newer posts, partially succumbing to repeated cries from the Instagram base to revert to a chronological feed. The main feature added in the latest update was a “New Posts” button that gives users control over when their feed is refreshed. Unfortunately, some people looking to test out the function will have to wait until service is restored.
Down Detector's heat map shows many reports of Instagram problems coming from Western Europe.
This isn’t the first time Instagram has had connectivity issues. In October 2017, Instagram and its parent company Facebook were down for many users for around two hours, which the company blamed on a “networking issue.” At the moment, there is no indication of whether Friday’s outage is a similarly benign problem, or whether there is a third party involved.
Some users began reporting that the service was working again just after 2:00 p.m. Eastern, but it appears to still be down for others.
Instagram did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Inverse.
