Instagram users across the world have been reporting issues accessing their profiles.

The Meta-owned social network says it is "looking into" the problem, which has caused some people to be told they are suspended from the platform.

DownDetector - which monitors site outages - says it has found that thousands of users are affected.

Some have been shown a message saying that their account has been shut down for 30 days.

A tweet from the official Instagram Communications account said: "We're aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account.

"We're looking into it and apologise for the inconvenience."

The company has not yet offered any further details on what has caused the unusual issue.

Some users still able to get on to the platform have reported seeing large drops in their follower numbers as the suspended accounts hit by the issue disappear from the site.

Last week, fellow Meta messaging platform WhatsApp suffered an outage which knocked it offline for about two hours.

BBC News