Instagram to notify users of in-app outages, technical issues 

Days after global outages that crippled Facebook Inc’s services, Instagram announced that it is testing a feature that will inform users of outages or technical issues directly on the platform.

Yesterday, many users faced problems with Instagram, according to user reports on Web monitoring group Downdetector.

Facebook-owned social media platform is also planning to roll out a feature that will help making it easier for people to know whether their account is at risk of being disabled.

Reportedly, the test will run in the United States (US) for a few months, Instagram said in a blog post.

On October 4, a six-hour long outage prevented the company’s 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. 

The social media giant, which has been the centre of memes and jokes on Twitter following the outages, is also grappling with former employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen’s accusation that the company repeatedly prioritised profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation.

Haugen, who provided the documents that underpinned a Wall Street Journal investigation and a Senate hearing on Instagram’s harm to teen girls, has agreed to meet with Facebook’s oversight board in the coming weeks to brief them about what she learned while working at the company.