World's most popular apps hit by major internet outage

A massive internet disruption on Monday left users unable to access some of the world’s most popular apps and websites, with reports of widespread outages affecting platforms hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

According to outage monitor Downdetector, user complaints surged globally — with over 5,000 issues flagged by Snapchat users alone. Similar disruptions were reported across other major platforms, including Duolingo, Roblox, Canva, Ring, and Amazon’s own services.

AWS confirms service disruption

In an update published at 12:34, Amazon Web Services confirmed “increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region.”
Engineers are “immediately engaged and actively working on both mitigating the issue and fully understanding the root cause,” the company said.

Apps and websites impacted by the outage
Platforms reportedly affected include:

• Amazon

• Canva

• Duolingo

• Snapchat

• Ring

• Roblox

• Life360

• MyFitnessPal

• Prime Video

• Fortnite

• Wordle

• Coinbase

• PlayStation

• Vodafone

• Pokémon Go

• HMRC and Xero

AWS, which powers much of the modern internet infrastructure, said the issue stems from its cloud computing services — particularly Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud — both essential for running storage and server functions for client companies.

Global disruption traced to early morning hours

The outage began around 8am in the UK (midnight Pacific time), when AWS systems detected elevated error rates. As one of the most relied-upon providers of cloud infrastructure globally — generating $108 billion in revenue last year — any disruption to AWS can have sweeping effects across the internet.

AWS engineers working to restore services

As of the latest update, AWS engineers continue to work to fully resolve the issue and identify its root cause. Users worldwide are advised to check their Downdetector sites for live outage updates and service restoration progress.