9:12 AM Update Facebook and Instagram have come back online. Response time is still a bit slow.
The Facebook and Instagram social media platforms fell off the Internet worldwide on Tuesday morning.
It is not yet clear if this was caused by hacking, by a central network hub failure, or a global DNS error, but some of the major popular social media platforms are currently unavailable. Instagram is owned by Facebook.
Facebook mobile messaging is still working. Twitter, as it happens, is working too.
There are no reports yet of massive Facebook withdrawal symptoms among users, but with one of the largest social media platforms unavailable, we won’t know about it until later.
On the other hand, we predict productivity might soar for the moment – if people stop pressing refresh on their browsers to see if Facebook is back online.
Facebook says they are working on the problem.