Meta-owned Instagram said its services were back online after thousands of users experienced technical issues accessing its platform on Wednesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.
TakeAway Points:
- Instagram, which is owned by Meta, announced that its services are now operational again after hundreds of users encountered technical difficulties on Wednesday, according to outage monitoring website Downdetector.com.
- Alphabet led a Big Tech rally on Wednesday, with its stock hitting a record high after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump picked Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the consumer protection and antitrust agency.
Service is back on Instagram
At the peak of the outage, which started around 12:50 p.m. ET., more than 100,000 incidents were reported with Facebook and nearly 70,000 with Instagram.
The number of reports has come down to over 1,000 for both apps as of 6 p.m. ET.
Downdetector’s numbers are based on user-submitted reports. The actual number of affected users may vary.
Some Facebook and Instagram users posted on X that they were encountering an error that said “something went wrong” and that Meta was working to get it fixed.
Earlier this year, a technical issue led to an outage that impacted hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Instagram users globally for more than two.
The platforms faced another outage in October, when services were largely restored within an hour.
Google-parent Alphabet hits record high after Trump taps Andrew Ferguson as FTC chair
Alphabet led a Big Tech rally on Wednesday, with its stock hitting a record high after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump picked Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the consumer protection and antitrust agency.
Trump tapped Ferguson on Tuesday to replace Lina Khan, whose term as FTC chair has expired.
The agency became a political flashpoint under Khan, who promoted antitrust enforcement as a check on corporate power. Several big tech firms, such as Google-parent Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple faced heightened regulatory pressure from the FTC during her tenure.
Ferguson was a “known dissenter” under Khan “and many people feel under his leadership the antitrust case against Alphabet will come to an end,” said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.
Trump and his team have been broadly critical of Big Tech companies, although some of his most prominent backers were tech executives, and it is unclear how they will approach regulatory and M&A policy for that sector.
Alphabet’s shares rose about 5.5% to hit a record high of $195.45. Tesla jumped 4.6%, also to a record high, extending its rally since the Nov. 5 presidential election on bets the EV-maker will benefit from CEO Elon Musk’s close relationship with Trump.
Other tech shares also rallied. Microsoft gained 1.2% and Amazon.com and Meta Platforms added 2% each.
The latest inflation report raised expectations of an interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve later this month, lifting technology stocks.
Alphabet’s shares increase
Shares of Alphabet have gained over 10% in the last two days following announcements from the company about its AI agents and quantum-chip breakthrough.
Google released the second generation of its Gemini artificial-intelligence model earlier on Wednesday and teased a lineup of new ways to use AI beyond chatbots, including through a pair of eyeglasses.
It unveiled a new-generation chip on Monday, which it said helped overcome a key challenge in quantum computing.
“What we’re seeing here is Google positioning itself at the bleeding edge of a transformative technology,” said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital.
“While Google sometimes has been viewed as ‘behind’ in AI, the recent quantum breakthrough shows us that the company knows how to construct processors,” said Jamie Meyers, senior analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments.
