Facebook and Instagram were down — live updates on the quick outage

Instagram and Facebook were experiencing an unexpected outage today, Sunday, September 20, with users on Downdetector reporting Facebook outages (and Instagram, though the number of reports is lower).Reports spiked quickly at 9.25 p.m. ET / 6.25 p.m. PT in the United States. Users reported that the social media application wouldn't load, leaving them unable to view photos and videos from their friends and favorite influencers. It seemed to be resolved quickly, though. Are Facebook and Instagram down? Live outage updates 2026-09-21T01:35:04.242Z Facebook reports rolling in (Image credit: Downdetector)Facebook quickly shot to more than 17,000 reports, which is a massive number for an outage just getting underway.I actually stumbled on the outage myself because I was attempted to look for something on Facebook Marketplace and it wouldn't load. This prompted to check Downdetector to see if it was a widespread issue. As it turns out, it's very widespread. 2026-09-21T01:40:16.138Z (Image credit: Downdetector) It's not just Facebook that's having problems. Instagram currently has around 6,400 Downdetector reports, which is no small number. If you're experiencing issues with either platform, just know that you're not alone. 2026-09-21T01:46:46.436Z (Image credit: Meta) Meta's official status page still shows everything having "No known issues." Of course, this doesn't match up with what we're seeing from Downdetector, where thousands of users are experiencing problems.It could be that because it's Sunday night, the folks at Meta are scrambling to find out what's happening and get to work on the problem. Or it could just be quick blip that goes away quickly, We shall see! 2026-09-21T01:52:11.883Z A sharp decline (Image credit: Downdetector) While Meta services are still dominating the top of Downdetector, they're all heavily angled down, which tells me that this was just a small blip.