UAE residents faced disruption to Facebook and Instagram services on Sunday.
Downdetector, which tracks online interruptions across the globe, recorded a surge in reports of issues regarding the social media platforms in the Emirates.
Both networks are run by Meta. The problems appeared to be affecting users around the world.
"Meta platforms including Instagram and Facebook are currently experiencing international outages," said Netblocks, which also monitors online service disruptions.
It said the incident was "not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering", in a post shared on X.
Some Instagram users were unable to access their feed or use the app, while Facebook users largely faced difficulties with the desktop version of the network.
Hundreds of people in the UAE complained of disruption to both Facebook and Instagram, with reports peaking from about noon to 1pm.
It is not clear what caused the disruption, nor when it will be fully resolved for all users.
