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- On Friday night, South African users of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger had difficulty accessing these platforms.
- The interruption of more than half an hour was experienced around the world.
- All affected platforms are owned by Facebook, but the Facebook site remained online.
- For more articles, visit www.BusinessInsider.co.za.
South Africans were struggling to access social media and messaging platforms on Friday night, with WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger hit by a global outage.
Services monitoring platform Downdetector shows that the WhatsApp outage was first reported around 7:20 PM on Friday night in South Africa.
Facebook Messenger and Instagram were also affected, but Facebook itself appears to be still online. WhatsApp and Instagram are owned by Facebook Group.
The platforms were restored around 20:10.
Blackouts from all three platforms were reported around the world.
Social media users expressed their frustration on Twitter:
OMG! My Instagram account is inactive. Now I have to describe my food ??????
– Eusebius McKaiser (@Eusebius) March 19, 2021
So … WhatsApp and Instagram are down? I was writing 🙁
– Abby Corona (@ Abby_5550) March 19, 2021
The tech giant has yet to release a statement on the outages. Facebook was not immediately available for further comment.
Earlier this month, Google suffered a brief outage in South Africa.
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