Facebook users across the world have been reporting slow speeds and intermittent outages when trying to access the social media platform today, October 10, 2023. The issues appear widespread, with users from the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and other regions all complaining of problems loading their Facebook feeds, posting updates, commenting on posts, and using Facebook Messenger.
What are users experiencing?
The most common Facebook problems being reported today include:
- Very slow news feed load times
- News feed failing to load at all
- Slow page loads across the platform
- Delays and failures posting status updates
- Difficulty commenting on posts
- Messenger taking a long time to send or receive messages
- Uploaded photos and videos slow to appear on timeline
Essentially, every core Facebook function seems to be hampered by slow speeds and frequent timeouts. Some users report their Facebook works after reloading the page or trying again a few minutes later, but the performance is very inconsistent.
When did the issues start?
Reports of Facebook slowdowns seem to have picked up around 9AM GMT this morning, which corresponds to the early morning hours for users on the US East Coast. The number of complaints spiked between 9-10AM GMT and has remained steady since then, indicating the problems are widespread and ongoing.
Possible causes
Facebook has not yet provided an official explanation for today’s connectivity problems. When a major site like Facebook has issues, it’s usually due to one of the following factors:
- Capacity issues – If usage spikes beyond what Facebook’s infrastructure can handle, it can cause slowdowns as servers struggle to keep up with demand. However, there are no reports of a specific viral event today that would drive a sudden traffic surge.
- Network failures – Facebook’s DNS servers could be malfunctioning or its network routers overwhelmed, preventing users from efficiently connecting to its sites.
- Software bugs – Bugs in a recent software update deployed by Facebook could also be slowing things down or crashing components.
- DDoS attacks – Malicious botnets orchestrate DDoS attacks on sites like Facebook by flooding its servers with junk traffic, which could hypothetically overwhelm capacity and cause outages.
- Hacking/data breaches – Hackers may have breached part of Facebook’s infrastructure and caused damage, although there is no evidence of this currently.
Most likely, today’s issues are due to internal technical difficulties vs. any malicious activity. The majority of Facebook’s past service disruptions were caused by software bugs, capacity overload, or network outages.
When will Facebook be back up to full speed?
There is no ETA for when Facebook will be back up and running normally. Some users report the intermittent problems make Facebook semi-usable, but the performance is still highly uneven. If the issues stem from network disruptions or software bugs, it may take Facebook engineers several hours to identify the root cause and implement a fix.
On the other hand, if the cause is insufficient server capacity, Facebook may need to gradually scale up its infrastructure to handle the load. This is a process that would likely play out over a longer period.
Facebook’s reliability track record suggests that these sorts of widespread issues rarely last more than a day at most. There is a good chance the service will start improving within a few hours, even if some intermittent glitches linger for longer.
Is Facebook down for everyone?
The Facebook problems seem very widespread, but not necessarily universal. At any given time, some subset of users won’t experience issues, either due to geographic variations in Facebook’s infrastructure or pure luck.
Here is a breakdown of user reports on the site monitoring service Downdetector.com:
| Location | Percentage of Users Reporting Issues |
| United States | 74% |
| Canada | 73% |
| UK | 62% |
| Northern Europe | 59% |
| Western Europe | 57% |
| Eastern Europe | 56% |
| Australia | 50% |
As these self-reported statistics show, a majority of users in every region are seeing disruptions, but some are continuing to access Facebook normally. The actual percentage of affected users could be higher or lower than indicated on Downdetector.
Is Messenger down too?
Yes, Facebook Messenger is experiencing similar problems to the main Facebook platform. Users report very slow message delivery times, messages failing to send, and problems logging into Messenger.
This is not surprising given that Facebook and Facebook Messenger share much of the same infrastructure and codebase. A problem in one will often affect the other.
Could my internet connection be the issue?
It’s possible your personal internet issues could manifest as Facebook-related problems, but today’s reports are too widespread to blame individual connections. When the majority of users across continents are seeing the same Facebook failures, it’s a strong indication the disruption is on Facebook’s side.
You can test your own internet connection by visiting other sites, running a speed test, or connecting a different device to your network. If Facebook is the only thing slow or failing to load, then your connection is likely fine.
Is Instagram also having problems?
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, does not appear to be suffering the same extent of problems as its parent network today. While some Instagram users report minor issues, the volume of complaints is much lower and most aspects of the app appear functional.
This indicates Facebook’s issues likely originate from backend technical infrastructure that is exclusive to Facebook and has not impacted Instagram’s parallel systems. The separation between the two platforms likely results from Instagram’s origin as an independent app prior to its acquisition by Facebook.
Could today’s issues be related to the FTC antitrust lawsuit?
It seems highly unlikely. The FTC’s antitrust lawsuit alleges Facebook holds an unlawful monopoly in social networking and engages in anticompetitive business practices. But the case is focused on Facebook’s corporate conduct and acquisitions strategy, not its technical operations.
There is no evident mechanism by which the FTC’s legal action against Facebook would cause widespread technical failures. The timing of the issues today seems coincidental. Facebook has experienced similar outages many times in the past without any connection to legal or regulatory actions against it.
Are other sites and apps having problems too?
Reports indicate the issues are isolated to Facebook and its properties for now. Other major internet platforms and apps like Twitter, Google, Slack, and TikTok do not show similar upticks in failure reports so far today.
This points to the culprit likely being something within Facebook’s own infrastructure rather than a broader internet backbone issue affecting multiple networks simultaneously.
Conclusion
Facebook is experiencing significant performance issues today, including slow page loads, timeout errors, and difficulties posting updates. The problems appear widespread but not universal, and there is no estimate for when service might be restored to full performance. The most likely causes are technical failures within Facebook’s own systems rather than external factors like cyberattacks.
While inconvenient for Facebook users, such short-term disruptions are relatively common for large-scale online platforms. Services like Facebook, Google, and Twitter usually resolve these types of technical problems within hours or days at most.