UPDATE: Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp Return After 7 Hour Outage

Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp returned late Monday afternoon several hours after they crashed leaving users with just blank screens.

The three Facebook-owned social media platforms were all inaccessible for any activity including messaging. Facebook users were greeted by a message "sorry, something went wrong" while Instagram had "5xx server error" written its website and was just blank on the app. The WhatsApp site was simply inaccessible.

"To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. 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," Facebook said in a tweet.

The company did not disclose the exact cause of the 7-hour outage. Facebook stock fell 5% during the trading day

The outages came after former employee Frances Haugen went public and told CBS' 60 Minutes that she filed complaints with federal law enforcement accusing Facebook of amplifying hate, misinformation and political unrest.

The website Downtector had reports from all over the world about the outage.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH