Overview
Meta operates its own internet backbone — one of the largest private networks in the world — under a single ASN, AS32934. The same backbone routes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, and the underlying Meta infrastructure. Meta does not publish a public JSON of all its ranges, but the prefixes are visible via Internet routing tables and BGP looking glasses (e.g., bgp.he.net/AS32934).
Services on these IPs
Meta IPs serve: Facebook (web, mobile, ad delivery), Instagram (web, media CDN), WhatsApp (signaling, calling), Messenger, FBSBX (developer sandboxes), and the internal corporate network. Heavy edge caching means many requests are served from regional Meta PoPs even if the origin sits in a US data center.
How to detect Meta / Facebook IPs
Reverse DNS typically returns *.facebook.com (e.g., edge-star-mini-shv-01-iad3.facebook.com). User-agent strings for the official Facebook crawler (facebookexternalhit) are documented. ASN AS32934 is definitive for Meta-owned IPs.
When this matters
Ad measurement teams need to filter or include Meta crawler traffic. SEO admins want facebookexternalhit (the link preview crawler) to fetch share thumbnails. Network admins identifying Facebook/Instagram traffic for QoS or filtering.
Caveats
These sample ranges are well-known Meta prefixes verified via BGP. There is no official published list — for production allowlisting use the live ASN AS32934 routing table via a BGP feed or RIPEstat API.