Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users are reporting difficulty accessing due to a global mass outage.

“We are aware that a technical issue is affecting some users’ access to our apps. We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience,” said Meta, which owns Apps X.

According to outage tracking site Downdetector, over 22,000 people reported problems with Facebook this evening and over 18,000 had difficulty using WhatsApp.

Issues with the apps have been reported in the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the US.

Downdector said the outages began around 1800 GMT on Wednesday. The numbers are based on reports of outages and the actual number of users affected can vary significantly.

Various issues were reported, including the apps not being able to be used at all or feeds not updating for certain users.

Meta’s platforms are among the most popular in the world. Facebook has over three billion active monthly users.

Meta experienced its biggest outage in 2021 when founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the disruption caused.

On this occasion, the Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram services were down for almost six hours.