Instagram

"We're aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products," Facebook said on Twitter. "We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience."
Outage tracking site Down Detector logged tens of thousands of reports for each of the services. Facebook's own site would not load at all for about an hour on Monday; Instagram and WhatsApp were accessible, but could not load new content or send messages.

Facebook would use the time to listen to "parents, experts, policymakers and regulators", Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote.

It follows leaked internal research the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said showed Instagram was "toxic for teen girls".

But in a recent blog, Facebook head of research Pratiti Raychoudhury called this allegation "simply not accurate".

Instagram requires users to be at least 13 before they create an account - but many children under that age use the platform anyway.

It comes after a flood of racist abuse was directed at England footballers Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho following the men's Euro 2020 final.

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said content had "mistakenly" been identified as within guidelines instead of referred to human moderators.

The issue had now been fixed, he said.

“We have technology to try and prioritise reports and we were mistakenly marking some of these as benign comments, which they are absolutely not,” he told BBC News.

“The issue has since been addressed.

According to US court documents, the star was snapped queuing at an airport in February 2019 and later shared the shot with her fans "without permission or authorisation".

Integral Images says Lipa profited from the photo, as her Instagram feed acts as a marketing tool for her music.

It is seeking $150,000 (£108,000) damages and has asked for a jury trial.

The company is also asking for an order preventing the singer from further acts of infringement, as well as legal costs.

The app had favoured original content in its "stories" feature over existing, re-shared posts, but will now give them equal treatment, it said.

The current system had a "bigger impact than expected" on some types of posts.

But that was an unintended side-effect rather than an attempt to censor any particular viewpoint, Instagram said.

During the recent Gaza conflict, social media platforms were heavily used to spread messages of support on both sides.

It follows a number of footballers speaking out about experiencing racist, sexist and other abuse on Instagram.

Direct messages (DMs) containing words or emojis deemed offensive will be removed from view.

The tool will be available in the UK, France, Ireland, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Canada within weeks.

More countries will then receive the relevant update in the coming months.

"Because DMs are private conversations, we don't proactively look for hate speech or bullying the same way we do elsewhere," Instagram blogged.

At 94 years young, the naturalist's follower count raced to seven figures in four hours 44 minutes on Thursday, according to Guinness World Records.

His debut post said: "Saving our planet is now a communications challenge."

Last October, Friends star Aniston reached the milestone in five hours and 16 minutes.

In his first video, the veteran broadcaster told followers: "I am making this move and exploring this new way of communication to me because, as we all know, the world is in trouble.

Hacker Alex Hope said he uncovered Mr Abbott's details from his Qantas boarding pass in just 45 minutes.

He then spent months attempting to contact Mr Abbott to alert him of the security breach.

Qantas said it had now updated its cyber security protocols.

Mr Abbott posted an image of a boarding pass for his flight from Sydney to Tokyo on 21 March on his Instagram account, thanking the crew.

The wrestler-turned-actor could charge advertisers more than $1m (£790,000) per post last year, according to the social media marketing firm Hopper HQ.

The Fast and Furious star knocked make-up entrepreneur Kylie Jenner off the top spot.

She has 182 million Instagram followers, while he has 187 million.

UK-based company Hopper HQ, which runs social media accounts on behalf of companies and individuals, published its first Instagram rich list in 2017.

The 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News report found the use of Instagram for news had doubled since 2018.

The trend is strongest among young people. It said nearly a quarter of UK 18-24-year-olds used Instagram as a source of news about coronavirus.

But social media platforms were also among the least-trusted sources.

Just 26% of people said they trusted social media as a source of information about the virus. A similar percentage said they trusted news that had been shared via chat apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.