Several major apps and online services across the world went offline on Monday after an outage hit Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing arm that powers a large portion of the internet.
The disruption affected platforms such as Snapchat, Fortnite, Roblox, Signal, Coinbase, Robinhood, and several UK banks, including Lloyds Bank and the Bank of Scotland. Telecom providers Vodafone and BT, as well as the UK’s tax and customs agency HMRC, also experienced service interruptions.
AWS said it was experiencing increased “error rates and latencies” across multiple services, adding, “We are working on multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery.”
It is the first major global internet disruption since last year’s CrowdStrike malfunction that crippled technology systems in hospitals, airports, and banks.
AI startup Perplexity confirmed the issue on X, with CEO Aravind Srinivas posting: “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.”
Popular gaming platforms including Fortnite, Roblox, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans were also hit, alongside payment services such as PayPal’s Venmo and Chime.
Amazon’s shopping website, Prime Video, and Alexa also faced connectivity problems, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.
In the United States, Uber rival Lyft was down for thousands of users, while in the UK, financial institutions and telecom firms were among those affected.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed on X that the company’s messaging platform was hit by the AWS outage as well.
When reached for comment, AWS directed reporters to its service status page, while Amazon did not respond to further requests for comment.
Despite the widespread disruption, Elon Musk said his social media platform remained unaffected, posting simply: “X works.”
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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