Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger went down globally on Friday night at around 11 PM, notes outage tracking website Downdetector. The outage, which lasted for about 45 minutes, was first alerted by Twitter users. Several reported that while no messages could be sent on WhatsApp and Messenger, photo or video content could not be loaded on Instagram.
Ezra Kaplan, Tech Producer for NBC News, tweeted Facebook's response, "Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have trouble accessing some Facebook services. We resolved this issue for everyone, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
On coming back on, Whatsapp's official handle tweeted, "Thanks for your patience, that was a long 45 minutes but we are back! #WhatsAppDown"
Meanwhile, WhatsApp's rival messaging app Signal, which saw a surge in users with the announcement of WhatsApp's new privacy policy, tweeted, "Signal registrations are through the roof; welcome everyone! Solidarity to the folks working on the WhatsApp outage. People outside of the tech industry will never understand how weird it sounds when someone says that they are "looking forward to some weekend downtime.
In the meantime, Twitterati lost no time in making the outage content for a meme rampage.