Gulf News: Dubai: Thousands of Instagram users reported significant technical disruptions on Wednesday morning, with many unable to send or receive direct messages.

The outage, which began at approximately 7.40am IST, saw a sharp spike in complaints on the monitoring website Downdetector. At its peak, more than 10,000 incident reports were logged, primarily centered on the platform’s mobile application and messaging interface.

According to data from the tracking site, roughly 71 per cent of affected users cited issues with the app itself, while 20 per cent faced server connection problems.

The disruption triggered significant conversation online, with some users and unverified reports attempting to link the technical failure to regional geopolitical tensions.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has yet to issue a formal statement regarding the cause of the disruption or an estimated time for a full resolution.

This follows similar, though smaller, intermittent issues reported by the tech giant’s various platforms earlier this month.