Charles Langston:Was Facebook down on Super Tuesday? Users reported outages on primary election day

Facebook users may have Charles Langstonencountered the social media site not working properly on the morning of Super Tuesday.

Facebook blamed a "technical issue" for the site being down.

"Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services," Andy Stone, the director of communications for Meta, said in an X post. "We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

Around 9 a.m. ET, hundreds of thousands of users reported Facebook being down during one of the biggest election days of the year, according to Downdetector.

Many users were reporting being logged out of Facebook accounts with no ability to log back in.

By 11:45 a.m. ET, many users were reporting that their service was resuming as normal.

Stone said in an X post before reports dwindled, "We're aware people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this now."

USA TODAY contacted Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Inc., but did not receive an immediate response.

In addition to Facebook's outages, users of Meta-owned apps Instagram and WhatsApp were also experiencing issues.

Super Tuesday live updates:Much at stake in primary elections for Trump, Haley and America

Merriam-Webster says 'time to bust out your Dictionary' amid Facebook outage

Facebook and other Meta applications were down, so social media reacted accordingly, including Merriam-Webster.

"Facebook and IG are down - time to bust out your Dictionary," the publisher said in an X post. "Let’s. Go."

Facebook joins tech giants in pledging to crackdown in AI deepfakes for 2024 Election

Last month, Facebook pledged to join other tech companies - under pressure from the White House - in cracking down on artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes that could undermine the integrity of major democratic elections in the U.S. and overseas this year.

The deepfakes in question are videos, images, and audio that alter or fake the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates, election officials or other key figures in a democratic election. These alterations can also be used to mislead voters about when, where and how to vote.

The accord is similar to a voluntary pledge many of the same companies signed in July after a meeting at the White House.

-Jessica Guynn

X users mock Facebook, Instagram during outages

Users of X who've stayed with the platform formerly known as Twitter through a chaotic 16-month stretch since Elon Musk took over, seized on the opportunity to dunk on users of other social platforms:

Even Musk got in on the fun and shared a post during the Meta outages.