Instagram was back up for most users after a global outage that affected thousands began to ease on Sunday evening. The photo-sharing app, owned by Meta Platform Inc (META.O), was down for over 90 minutes, prompting many users to complain to Twitter and other platforms.
Meta said in a statement that the issue was resolved as quickly as possible for everyone impacted, and the app is usually working. The company apologized for the inconvenience and noted no further details about what caused the outage.
Meta’s Instagram is one of its key growth initiatives. Reels product rivaling TikTok in a short video, and a new service for generative artificial intelligence that can create human-like writing and art. It has also stepped up spending on AI hardware and software to expand the scale of its technology while trimming costs in other areas.
But the investment in new technology is running against Meta’s computing capacity limits. In addition, the company is facing pressure from investors to recoup its costs, particularly as it continues to lose money in its Reality Labs unit. In a blog post on Wednesday, the company said it would reactivate some suspended accounts of political activists who were punished for violating Meta’s policies on civil discourse and free speech.
It also left open the possibility that it could increase capital expenditures in its generative AI business, but analysts say such an investment could strain Meta’s balance sheet. Earlier this month, the company reported a loss of 13.7 billion euros ($15.8 billion) for 2022, with its loss from its metaverse-oriented business continuing to eat into profits. Its stock was down more than 3% in premarket trading.
