Social media giant Facebook, owned by Meta Platforms, experienced a widespread outage that left thousands of users unable to access their accounts on Tuesday.

The disruption triggered a surge in user complaints globally before services were largely restored later in the evening.

Meta’s flagship service Facebook faced a significant outage beginning around 4:15pm Eastern Time (ET), with users around the world reporting they were unable to log in or access their accounts.

Many users attempting to sign in encountered an error message stating: "Account Temporarily Unavailable. Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes."

Thousands of complaints reported

Real-time outage tracking website Downdetector recorded a sharp spike in complaints as the disruption unfolded.

At its peak, more than 11,000 users in the United States reported problems with Facebook. By 6:11pm ET, the number of reports had dropped to around 1,200, suggesting that services were gradually being restored.

ℹ️ Note: Social media platform Facebook is currently experiencing international outages; incident not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/KAwA8y4lTU
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) March 3, 2026

Later in the evening, by 8:30pm ET, the number of complaints had fallen to roughly 150 reports, indicating that the issue had been largely resolved.

Downdetector tracks service disruptions by collecting status reports from multiple sources, including user-submitted feedback, meaning the actual number of affected users may vary.

Business tools also face disruptions

While Facebook’s consumer-facing services do not have a public status page, Meta’s business services dashboard reported “high disruptions” affecting several key tools.

These included:

Facebook Ads Manager, a platform used to create, manage, and analyze advertising campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta platforms
Instagram Boost, which allows users to turn posts into advertisements
WhatsApp Business API, a tool enabling businesses to send bulk messages to customers

Because these services generate significant revenue for Meta, the disruption was considered a potentially serious incident for the company’s business operations.

Other Meta platforms remain operational

Despite the Facebook outage, Meta’s other major platforms — Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp — appeared to be functioning normally during the incident.

The company does not publish a status page for its consumer-facing services like Facebook login, making it harder for users to track real-time system updates.

Independent and non-partisan global internet monitor NetBlocks also confirmed that Facebook was experiencing international outages.

The organization noted that the disruption was not related to country-level internet filtering or network shutdowns, suggesting the issue likely originated within Meta’s own systems.

Services gradually restored

Later in the day, Facebook appeared to be largely back online, with user reports declining significantly from the earlier peak.

However, thousands of users across different regions had already experienced temporary disruptions, highlighting how outages at one of the world’s largest social media platforms can quickly affect millions of people and businesses.