NAIROBI, Kenya July 19 -Thousands of Facebook users in Kenya and across other parts of the world were temporarily locked out of their accounts on Tuesday after the social media platform experienced a widespread service disruption.Users attempting to access the platform through web browsers were instead met with a message indicating that the problem stemmed from a technical issue on Facebook’s end.“Your account is temporarily unavailable. Due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes,”read the notice displayed on the browser homepage.The outage left many users unable to log into their accounts, refresh news feeds or access messages, prompting a wave of reactions on rival social media platforms, where users sought to confirm whether the disruption was widespread.While the browser version appeared to be the most affected, some users also reported difficulties accessing the platform through the Facebook mobile application.Meta, the parent company of Facebook, had not immediately issued a detailed explanation on the cause of the disruption or indicated how many users were affected by the outage.Facebook remains the most widely used social media platform in Kenya, with millions of active users relying on it daily for communication, news consumption, business promotion and digital marketing.The platform is particularly popular among small and medium-sized enterprises, content creators, media organisations and government agencies, which use it to engage audiences and share real-time information.For many Kenyan businesses, Facebook also serves as a vital marketplace through Facebook Pages and Marketplace, enabling traders to advertise products, reach customers and conduct online sales. Any prolonged disruption therefore has the potential to affect commercial activity, customer engagement and access to information.The outage comes at a time when social media platforms have become central to public discourse in Kenya, with Facebook ranking among the country’s most influential digital platforms alongside WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and X.