Instagram crash! BUG in the system?

Halloween morning, thousands of Instagram users worldwide reported issues with their accounts. Was this a trick or treat?

The IG crash wouldn’t allow some users to log into their accounts, accounts were suspended, and in some, the number of followers suddenly dropped.

Reuters posted on Monday that an IG spokesperson said the issue was already fixed with no further details. “We’ve resolved this bug now – it was causing people in different parts of the world to have issues accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change for some in number of followers,” Meta Platforms Inc (META.O)-owned Instagram said in a tweet on Monday.

Is the Instagram crash unexplainable?
Despite the company not commenting on specifics, according to Reuters, there were “over 7,500 reports at 10:09 ET according to website Downdetector, by 6:00 it had declined to 500.”

The New York Times reported that this issue was different from past IG outages. Users were notified their accounts had been suspended instead of just being unable to access them.

Could the system been hacked?
Luis Deleon, Dean of the School of Computer Science of Atlantis University, analyzed the situation.

Approximately 7,000 users of Instagram were impacted, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector. A site that collates status reports from several sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outage may be much larger.

The issues seem to be affecting users around the globe, Downdetector indicated complaints from Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as many as in UAE.

The issues followed problems with Meta-owned platform WhatsApp users were unable to send and receive messages for several hours on Tuesday, October 25.

Friday, October 28, Instagram went in India for several hours; Meta announced a ‘Configuration change’ was the reason for the Instagram outage. The company stated the issue was fixed. Many were unable to access.

Shares of Meta closed down 24.6% to $97.94 on Thursday, October 27, wiping out nearly $85 billion of the Menlo Park, Calif., company’s market value, returning to 2016 levels. The stock is now down more than 70% in 2022.

Are these events related? Maybe not, but it makes you wonder…