Instagram testing feature to notify users of outages

However, the social network says that not every outage will result in notification, so these alerts will probably be saved for more serious issues affecting a large number of users

Facebook Inc’s Instagram said on Monday it is testing a feature to notify users of outages or technical issues directly on the photo-sharing app, days after two outages disrupted the social media giant’s services.

The test will run in the US and will go on for a few months, Instagram said in a blog post.

On Oct.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.

Earlier on Monday, many users faced problems with Instagram, according to user reports on web monitoring group Downdetector.

Instagram says that not every outage will result in notification, so these alerts will probably be saved for more serious issues affecting a large number of users.

We’re testing a new feature that will notify you in your Activity Feed when we experience an outage or technical issue, and when it is resolved. We won’t send a notification every single time there is an outage, but when we see that people are confused and looking for answers, we’ll determine if something like this could help make things clearer, it said.

The company 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.

The social media giant is also grappling with former employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen’s accusation that the company repeatedly prioritized 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.