Instagram outage locks users’ accounts, many receive baffling suspension message

Instagram was hit by a weird outage overnight which appeared to suspend droves of users from their accounts, causing widespread confusion.

Instagram users reported issues accessing their accounts overnight. Picture: AFP

Instagram was hit by a weird outage overnight which appeared to suspend droves of users from their accounts.

Reports from confused users surged at about 12.30am, AEST.

People flooded social media, trying to figure out what was going on. Many shared a message from Instagram telling them their accounts had been suspended.

“We suspended your account on 31 October 2022,” the widely received alert said.

It was not initially clear how widespread the problem was.

“Mark Zuckerberg what hell is this my account in suspended,” one annoyed user wrote.

“Earlier it was crashing every 10-20 seconds and now they have suspended my account for no reason,” another said.

“I cannot even log in to my account.”

A third added: “What’s going on with Instagram? Did they get hacked or something?

“Mine says my account is suspended. I guess my pic of the hummus plate I made sent them over the edge.”

The message users were receiving.

At 1.15am on Tuesday AEST, Instagram – which is part of Facebook owner Meta – posted a tweet apologising and saying it was “looking into it”.

We're aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. We're looking into it and apologize for the inconvenience. #instagramdown

— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) October 31, 2022

In response to the tweet, one user said she was “panicking” and was worried all her users would vanish.

“It’s so hard to build and audience and start a business if I lose the account I lose my income”.

A surge in reports was noticed by the Down Detector site shortly after midnight.

Website The Verge said it examined footballer Christian Ronaldo’s Instagram account during to outage and it had apparently lost three million followers, although that was less than one per cent of his total followers.

While Instagram’s own account had lost one million followers.

Talking to CNN a Meta spokesman said the outage was occurring in “different parts of the world”.

This article first appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission.

Originally published as Instagram outage locks users’ accounts, many receive baffling suspension message