Meta said it is “99% of the way there” in solving an ongoing social media blackout with its apps.

On Wednesday at around 6pm, thousands of social media users in parts of the UK reported an outage with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The social media giant reported that a “technical issue” had left users unable to access its services.

DownDetector, a website that monitors social media outages, says the three cities hit worst by the outage were London, Manchester and Glasgow.

Other major cities hit hard by the blackout were Cardiff, Nottingham and Birmingham.

By around 10pm on Wednesday, DownDetector UK said there had been 23,445 reports of Facebook outages, 11,466 Instagram outages and 18,646 on WhatsApp across Britain.

In an update issued at 10.26pm on X, Meta said the problem was now nearly resolved.

A spokesperson said: “Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks.

“We apologise to those who’ve been affected by the outage.”

Other parts of the world affected include Europe, Asia, South America and Australia, according to DownTracker.

To find out if your area is affected, visit: downdetector.co.uk/status/facebook/map.