BELOW SUPERNAV drop zone ⇩

Should you change your Facebook, Instagram password after outages?

MAIN AREA TOP drop zone ⇩

MAIN AREA TOP drop zone ⇩

ovp test

mLife Diagnostics LLC: Oral Fluid Drug Testing

Male shot by female at Shreveport apartment

Class to create biodiverse backyard

Rules for outbursts at Caddo School Board Meeting

AUTO TEST CUSTOM HTML 20241114185800

(NEXSTAR) – For about 90 minutes Tuesday morning, Facebook and Instagram users found themselves locked out of the social media platforms. When trying to log back in, users were repeatedly told they entered an “invalid password.”

But the problem turned out to have nothing to do with people’s passwords. It was a widespread outage caused by a “technical issue,” Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) said.

The outage was not caused by a hack nor a breach, a company spokesperson told Nexstar, so there’s no reason to rush and change your password now.

Even though passwords weren’t compromised during the issues, Meta reminds users the best way to keep their accounts safe is to enable two-factor authentication. That sets up another layer of security when people try and access your accounts.

You can turn on or adjust two-factor authentication in your account settings.

The outage comes just ahead of Thursday’s deadline for Big Tech companies to comply with the European Union’s new Digital Markets Act. To comply, Meta is making changes, like allowing users to separate their Facebook and Instagram accounts so personal information can’t be combined to target them with online ads. It’s not clear whether the outage is connected to any preparations Meta might be carrying out for the DMA.

In 2021, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down for hours, an outage the company said was a result of faulty changes on routers that coordinate network traffic between its data centers. The next year, WhatsApp had another brief outage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tech

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Site Settings Survey

 

MAIN AREA MIDDLE drop zone ⇩

Trending on NewsNation

MAIN AREA BOTTOM drop zone ⇩

tt

KC Chiefs parade shooting: 1 dead, 21 shot including 9 kids | Morning in America

Witness of Chiefs parade shooting describes suspect | Banfield

Kansas City Chiefs parade shooting: Mom of 2 dead, over 20 shot | Banfield

WWE star Ashley Massaro 'threatened' by board to keep quiet about alleged rape: Friend | Banfield

Friend of WWE star: Ashley Massaro 'spent hours' sobbing after alleged rape | Banfield

Mostly Cloudy

la

56°F Mostly Cloudy Feels like 56°
Wind
4 mph SE
Humidity
83%
Sunrise
Sunset

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 52F. Winds light and variable.
52°F Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 52F. Winds light and variable.
Wind
5 mph WSW
Precip
15%
Sunset
Moon Phase
Waxing Gibbous