Facebook and Instagram are back online as parent company Meta scrambled to deal with worldwide outages this afternoon. 

Outages affected hundreds of thousands of users from around 3.20 pm.

Facebook was restored around an hour later with Instagram the last to go back online - though some users are still reporting issues on the site.

The problems with Facebook had left many users logged out and unable to reset their password or access their accounts.

Users had reported that on Instagram, there were problems loading users' timelines, stories and comments.

Twitter alternative threads was also down this afternoon.

we know why you’re all here rn

— X (@X) March 5, 2024

More than 560,000 people reported Facebook outages with the Down Detector website over the last two hours.

Nearly 90,000 Instagram outages were also reported on the website, which collates status reports from several sources, including users.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta has yet to officially comment on the problems, however, spokesperson Andy Stone posted on Twitter: "We're aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now."