UPDATE - Facebook family of apps gradually returning to service

ADDS DETAILS THROUGHOUT; REMOVES COLUMBIA COMPUTER SCIENTIST’S ANALYSIS

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Facebook and its family of apps began to slowly return to service Monday following a six-hour worldwide outage whose cause remains unknown.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have resumed operations for some users, though the services appeared to be operating at a slower pace than normal. WhatsApp appeared especially stunted following the blackout.

Over 125,000 people reported outages on Facebook just before noon Eastern time, according to the Downdetector website, which monitors website and app disruptions.

The cause of the widespread outage has not been officially announced, and Facebook, the parent company of a slew of apps and services that includes Instagram and WhatsApp, has not weighed in on the matter but acknowledged earlier Monday "that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products."

In a follow-up statement after some users reported a resumption of service, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone issued an apology to "the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us."

"We're sorry," he said on Twitter. "We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us."

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, who earlier remarked that "it does feel like a snow day," separately apologized for the shutdown, saying "this wasn't how we wanted to start the week."

"Instagram should be slowly coming back online now," he added on Twitter.

Twitter saw a large spike in traffic amid the Facebook shutdown, which prompted some problems on the microblogging website.

"Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter. We prepare for these moments, but today things didn’t go exactly as planned," Twitter Support said.