Instagram crashes for thousands of users across the world

Instagram is looking into an issue that has prevented thousands of its users from accessing the photo-sharing platform, with several of them complaining about their accounts being suspended.

"We're aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. We're looking into it and apologize for the inconvenience," Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms Inc (META.O), said on its Twitter account on Monday.

A spokesperson for Instagram did not comment on the suspension of accounts. Several Instagram users have tweeted that the application asked for email ID and phone number to access their suspended account.

At 11:13 ET, nearly 3,000 users were affected, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector, which collates status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.

The outage may be affecting a much larger number of users. Shares of Meta were trading nearly 5% lower amid a wider selloff in stock markets.

More to come…