Instagram fixes bug that caused hours of downtime

Instagram said on Monday it had fixed a software bug that prevented thousands of users from accessing the photo-sharing platform for nearly eight hours, prompting complaints of suspended accounts.

"We've now fixed this bug - it was causing people in different parts of the world to have trouble accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change in the number of followers for some," Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms Inc, said in a tweet on Monday. An Instagram spokesperson declined to comment on the account suspensions. Many Instagram users had tweeted that they were asked for their email IDs and phone numbers to access their suspended accounts. The number of user reports dropped from more than 7,500 reports at 10:09 a.m. ET on the outage monitoring website Downdetector to about 500 around 6 p.m. ET. Downdetector collates status reports from a number of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outage could be affecting a much larger number of users. Meta's shares closed down 6.1%, amid a broader sell-off in equity markets. Follow Global Economic Developments on Social Media! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Facebook account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Instagram account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Twitter account!