Problems with the apps were reported in the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US.

“And we’re back, happy chatting!” WhatsApp said on X.

“Andddd we’re back – sorry for the wait, and thanks for bearing with us,” Instagram said.

The outages started around 18:00 GMT on Wednesday, according to Downdetector. Its numbers are based on reports of outages and the actual number of users affected may vary considerably.

Soon after users reported issues, Meta said it was aware of a “technical issue” that was “impacting some users’ ability to access our apps” and said it was working to fix things as soon as possible.

A variety of issues were reported including not being able to use the apps at all or feeds not refreshing for certain users.

“We’re aware of some issues accessing WhatsApp. We’re actively working on a solution and starting to see a return to normal for most people. We expect things to be back to normal shortly,” WhatsApp said around the same time.

Meta’s platforms are some of the most popular in the world. Facebook has over three billion active monthly users.

The biggest outage Meta experienced was in 2021 when founder Mark Zuckerberg apologised for the disruption caused.

On that occasion, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram services went down for almost six hours.