Facebook grapples with severe outage

A global Facebook outage has also affected apps like WhatsApp and Instagram.

The outage may have been triggered by routine maintenance. Picture: AP

Facebook was hit today with a severe outage, with users across the globe facing issues with the company’s apps including WhatsApp and Instagram.

Users reported this morning being unable to send and receive files, while for some users images on profiles and on Facebook’s news feed failed to load.

Facebook said in a statement it was working to fix the issue.

“During one of our routine maintenance operations, we triggered an issue that is making it difficult for some people to upload or send photos and videos,” Facebook said.

The company is still investigating the overall impact of the issue, which affected Australians Wednesday night and Thursday morning and was ongoing at 10am (AEST).

Facebook, which gets tens of millions of dollars from advertising revenue daily, declined to comment when asked whether it will refund businesses.

In a similar incident in March, the company said it would consider refunding advertisers for lost exposure.

“The disruption appears to be related to an internal infrastructure or application issue,” said ThousandEyes, a company that monitors internet traffic globally.

More than 14,000 users reported issues with Instagram, while more than 7500 and 1600 users complained about Facebook and WhatsApp, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) handed its final report from its digital platforms inquiry to the federal government over the weekend, with the final report set to be released to the public this month.

It will likely recommend new regulation for Facebook, including an investigation into its market power and how it ranks and surfaces news stories and advertisements.

Additional reporting: Reuters