The outage has prompted many users to turn to rival social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), to register their complaints and confirm that others are experiencing similar problems. Instagram has suffered a major technical glitch, causing widespread disruption for users attempting to send direct messages (DMs) on the platform. According to DownDetector, which monitors service outages, problems began at around 5 pm on Tuesday, with over 2,000 reports filed by frustrated users. The outage has prompted many users to turn to rival social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), to register their complaints and confirm that others are experiencing similar problems. “Did you ignore your DMs? No I didn’t!! Instagram is down!!” one affected user tweeted. “I’m opening Twitter to see if Instagram is down for everyone or just me,” another joked. Additional reports highlighted problems related to message delivery, with one user saying, “Messages are not getting delivered and showing ‘failed to deliver’ after a few minutes. Is anyone else experiencing this?” Another user who believed it to be their own internet problem said, “I recharged top-up for my messages that were not getting sent, came to X and found it was Instagram’s problem.”
As the outage is still ongoing, there has been no official communication from Instagram or its parent company Meta about the cause of the disruption. Users are encouraged to check the Instagram status page and Downdetector for updates as they await a resolution. The incident follows a similar outage earlier this month when both Facebook and Instagram experienced widespread disruption that affected thousands of people across the United States. At the time, there were over 12,000 reports related to Facebook and over 5,000 for Instagram.
Artificial intelligence systems like DownDetector rely on user-submitted reports; thus, the actual number of affected users could be even higher.
