Meta is DOWN: Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook outage hits thousands of users worldwide

A trifecta of Meta-owned social media sites, including Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp went down for users worldwide Wednesday afternoon, leaving thousands disconnected from their friends, family and favorite influencer's feeds. 

According to DownDetector, a website which monitors such outages, reports of problems on these platforms first began to surface at about 18:00 GMT (14:00 ET).

Users of Facebook's desktop client in the Dallas and Houston, Texas areas appeared to among the hardest hit, based on the site's tracking of complaints and reports.

The majority of complaints regarding WhatsApp (percent) and Instagram (percent) pertained to the mobile app versions of these social platforms. 

Many users flocked to Elon Musk 's X to see if others were experiencing problems.

Users mostly said they were unable to send messages, but others reported being unable to receive them. Some users even declared that they could not access the apps at all. 

Facebook's parent company Meta has not revealed a cause for the problem.

But a heat map of user complaints within the past few hours, as compiled by DownDetector, showed clusters of reported outages for Instagram, located across New York; Los Angeles; and Chicago.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.