Seoul, South Korea – Meta Platforms, the parent company of Instagram, has been fined 5 million won by the Ministry of Science and ICT for failing to report a significant Instagram outage that lasted for 75 minutes in March.

Under South Korea's Telecommunications Act, major telecommunications providers are required to report any communication disasters or disruptions to the ministry within 10 minutes of their occurrence. However, Meta failed to comply with this regulation following the widespread Instagram outage that affected approximately 3.35 million users in South Korea on March 22.

The outage began around 7:30 AM on March 22, preventing users from logging in and accessing the platform. While Meta acknowledged the issue and restored service by 8:45 AM, the company did not immediately report the incident to the ministry. Despite multiple requests for information regarding the outage, Meta only provided a verbal report 24 hours and 19 minutes after the incident, and a written report was submitted four days later.

“Disruptions to value-added telecommunications services, which are closely intertwined with people's daily lives, can impact other services,” said Kim Nam-cheol, Director-General of the Information Security and Network Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT. He emphasized the importance of large-scale value-added telecommunications providers, such as Big Tech companies, adhering to reporting obligations in the event of service disruptions.

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