By Peace Erewunmi

Facebook users across the United Kingdom experienced a temporary outage on Sunday after thousands were unable to access their accounts, with many receiving an “Account Temporarily Unavailable” warning while attempting to log in. The disruption primarily affected the desktop version of the platform, although many users reported that the mobile app continued to function normally.

The error message displayed to affected users stated: “Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.” Reports of the problem surged on outage-monitoring platforms, indicating that the issue was widespread and affected users in multiple countries beyond the UK.

According to outage tracker Downdetector, complaints increased sharply during the morning as users reported difficulties logging into Facebook, Messenger and, in some cases, Instagram. The incident sparked concerns on social media, with many users initially fearing their accounts had been hacked before it became clear that the problem was linked to a broader platform outage.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, had not immediately provided a detailed explanation for the disruption. However, reports indicated that services gradually began returning for many users later in the day as the company worked to restore normal operations.

The outage is the latest in a series of technical disruptions to affect Meta’s platforms in recent years, highlighting the challenges of maintaining uninterrupted service for billions of users worldwide.