What's happened
On December 11, 2024, Meta's platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, experienced significant outages affecting users globally. Concurrently, OpenAI's ChatGPT service also faced technical issues. Both companies reported working on solutions to restore services.
Why it matters
What the papers say
According to The Independent, Meta's outage affected over 100,000 users, with significant reports from cities like London and Manchester. The company stated, 'We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps.' Meanwhile, OpenAI reported issues with ChatGPT, stating, 'We’re experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix.' The Guardian noted that this is not the first time Meta has faced such widespread outages, referencing a similar incident in March 2024. This pattern raises concerns about the reliability of major tech platforms.
How we got here
The outages began around 6 PM UK time on December 11, 2024, with users reporting issues across various regions. Meta acknowledged the problems and stated they were working to resolve them, while OpenAI also confirmed its service disruptions.
Common question
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What Caused the Recent Meta Global Outage?
On December 11, 2024, Meta faced a significant global outage affecting its major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This incident raised numerous questions about the reliability of Meta's services and how it impacts users and businesses alike. Below, we explore the causes of the outage, user reactions, and what steps Meta is taking to prevent future disruptions.
More on these topics
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Facebook, Inc. is an American social media conglomerate corporation based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, along with his fellow roommates and students at Harvard College, who were Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk
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WhatsApp Messenger, or simply WhatsApp, is an American freeware, cross-platform messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Facebook, Inc.
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Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and originally launched on iOS in October 2010.
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Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California and a flagship service of the namesake company Facebook, Inc.
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Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. It is the second-largest city, urban area and metropolitan area in England and the United Kingdom, with roughly 1.1 million inhabitants within the city area, 2.9 million inhabita
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Cardiff is a city and the capital of Wales. It is the United Kingdom's eleventh-largest city. As Wales' chief commercial centre, Cardiff is the base for the Senedd, most national cultural institutions and Welsh media.
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Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. It has a population of 547,627 as of 2018. It lies within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.5 million and third-most populous metropol
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Nottingham is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, England. Part of the East Midlands region, it is 128 miles north of London and 45 miles northeast of Birmingham. To the west lies Derby, separated by the M1 motorway.
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Glasgow is the most populous city in Scotland, and the third most populous city in the United Kingdom, as of the 2019 estimated city population of 611,748.
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ChatGPT is a prototype artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI that focuses on usability and dialogue. The chatbot uses a large language model trained with reinforcement learning and is based on the GPT-3.5 architecture.
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OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc.