Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms appeared to crash late Monday morning, leaving users with nearly blank screens.

The three Facebook-owned social media platforms were all inaccessible for any activity including messaging.

Facebook users in the U.S. were greeted by a message "sorry, something went wrong" while Instagram had "5xx server error" showing on its desktop version, while the app appeared as blank.   The Whatsapp site was simply inaccessible.

"We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience," the company said in a message on Twitter.

No estimate for restoration was mentioned in the message around noon.

It is normal for websites and apps to suffer outages, though one on a global scale is rare. Users reported being unable to access Facebook in California, New York and Europe.

Facebook is going through a major crisis after the whistleblower who was the source of The Wall Street Journal's series of stories exposing the company's awareness of internal research into the negative effects of its products and decisions went public on "60 Minutes" on Sunday.

Frances Haugen was identified in a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday as the woman who anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement that the company's own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation, leads to increased polarization and that Instagram, specifically, can harm teenage girls' mental health.

The Journal's stories, called "The Facebook Files," painted a picture of a company focused on growth and its own interests instead of the public good.

Facebook has tried to play down the research.

Nick Clegg, the company's vice president of policy and public affairs, wrote to Facebook employees in a memo Friday that "social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out."

(Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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