Hundreds of thousands of social media users are reporting issues accessing the social media platforms Instagram and Facebook amid what appears to be a widespread outage.

The website Downdetector, which tracks online outages, indicated a vast number of reports were made on Tuesday to suggest Facebook had been experiencing problems – tracking more than 300,000 reports of outages between around 3.20pm and 4pm.

Similarly, Instagram users reported issues with the platform around the same time, with more than 120,000 flagging outages on the site, according to Downdetector.

Social media users rushed to X, formerly Twitter, to report the outages – with #facebookdown the top trend on the site in the UK on Tuesday afternoon.

Users reported being logged out of their Facebook and Facebook Messenger accounts, while others indicated the applications or websites would not load as normal.

Facebook and Instagram are owned and operated by the company Meta, which also owns Threads and WhatsApp among other products and services.

Andy Stone, Meta’s head communications, acknowledged the issues – posting on X: “We’re aware people are having trouble accessing our services.

“We are working on this now.”

The PA news agency has contacted Meta for comment.