Dopey Facebook and Instagram begged by cops not to call them to fix social media sites after worldwide crash

The apps crashed in countries around the world and left thousands unable to connect – with police worried they would be swamped with calls demanding they fix the problem.

Police in Canterbury, New Zealand wrote on Twitter: "We know. Our Facebook and Instagram haven't been working either.

"Unfortunately we cannot do anything about this because, you know, they're based in America and we're the Police.

"So please don't call us to report this. Pretty please."

The force later confirmed their phone lines had not been clogged by callers reporting the error and that the plea was "preventative".

Please don't call us to report this. Pretty please.

Replying to a user on Twitter, they added: "[The statement] was preventative but we have in the past received calls like this. Seriously."

A police force in Australia also issued a statement urging distressed users not get in touch.

The South Australia State Emergency Service wrote on Twitter: "We know Facebook and Instagram are down.

"Please don't call triple zero to let us know."

A Queensland Police spokesman, however, confirmed it had issued no formal warning and had not received any calls about the platform problems.

WEB PANIC

The worldwide crash affected millions of users around the world, with thousands complaining about being unable to post any new messages or like other people's posts.

Facebook jumped back to life at 1.30am UK time – but Instagram remained down with users unable to log in.

In a statement to The Sun, a Facebook spokesperson said: "We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps.

"We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible."

Facebook runs both Instagram and Messenger, so all three services can easily by affected by a single problem.

Thousands of people complained of problems about the apps on the Down Detector website, which records outages.

Pages remained visible but apparently could not be updated.

WhatsApp users have reported they are unable to send picture messages.

The issues appear to have started at around 4pm UK time yesterday – but later tailed off by 5am.

However, independent checks and outage maps show Instagram was still suffering from problems this morning.

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