KEY POINTS
  • Facebook's family of apps experienced a 'major outage' Thursday.
  • Facebook and Instagram said they are aware users are experience issues and are working to resolve the problem.
  • "Earlier today, an issue in one of our central software systems caused many people to have trouble accessing Facebook's family of apps," a Facebook spokesperson said.
Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps displayed on a smartphone
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Facebook's family of apps experienced a 'major outage' Thursday, with users from around the world taking to social media to complain that they were having trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram in particular.

Instagram, in a post on Twitter, said it is aware that people are having issues accessing Facebook's family of apps, and said it was working to restore service on Instagram as quickly as possible.

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Facebook, in a statement to CNBC, said the outage was due to an issue in one of its central software systems. The company is now monitoring for a full recovery, it said.