Cape Town - Facebook and Instagram appeared to be down for South Africans and other users across the globe on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Both Facebook and Instagram access have been restored. Facebook has also posted this message about its downtime.
Users were briefly unable to access the sites from around 08:20 South African time and page requests resulted in an error message. "Error loading News Feed" read a message on the popular social networking site that boasts over 1.3 billion members. But the servics came back online after 09:30 South African time.
The problem appeared to affect the mobile site as well as the desktop website of Facebook. Even the Facebook mobile application appeared affected by the outage. Twitter users in South Africa and across the world reported issues regarding accessing Facebook.
The downtime of Facebook came after it announced this week that it has rolled out a "Lite" version for emerging markets such as SA
Meanwhile, reports indicate that both Tinder as well as Instagram are also down, and speculation has moved to a possible hack attack.
While several Twitter users expressed their shock at Facebook being unavailable, some used the opportunity to demonstrate their wit at the obsession some have with Facebook.
OMG WTF FACEBOOK IS DOWN HOW WILL WE READ CASUALLY RACIST COMMENTS NOW
— The NT News (@TheNTNews) January 27, 2015
Facebook isn't working. It's as dead as Dobby right now.
— Professor Snape (@_Snape_) January 27, 2015
Facebook is down. I’m currently standing outside on the sidewalk offering pics of my breakfast & cat to anyone walking past. #facebookdown
— Simon te Brinke (@gramercypark) January 27, 2015
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