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Biggest social media outages in recent years
The outage comes amid X’s escalating tensions with the Indian government over account takedowns and transparency concerns, adding yet another layer to the platform’s already tumultuous 2025.
The core of the dispute involves Italy's interpretation of value-added tax rules. Authorities contend that users registering for free access to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn should be considered a taxable event. The rationale is that users provide personal data in exchange for a membership account, which authorities consider an economic transaction.
In the early hours of May 23, users around the world found themselves locked out of X (formerly Twitter), as the platform experienced a widespread disruption. The outage, which began around 1 A.M. IST, impacted users in countries including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Malaysia, and Peru. While services had mostly resumed in India, issues like blank DM inboxes and login errors persisted globally. X’s engineering team attributed the downtime to a “data center outage” and acknowledged ongoing “degraded performance” — the second major disruption this year following a March incident. The timing is also notable, given X’s escalating tensions with the Indian government over account takedowns and transparency concerns, adding another layer to the platform’s tumultuous 2025.
Here’s a look at some of the most notable global platform outages over the past few years:
1. Facebook Outage – October 4, 2021
Platforms affected: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger Duration: ~6 hours Cause: Configuration changes to backbone routers disrupted data center traffic, leading to a cascading failure. Impact: Affected over 3.5 billion users globally. Facebook employees were locked out of systems and buildings. Estimated cost: $100 million+. $40 billion wiped off Facebook’s market cap. Disrupted small businesses, e-commerce, and even emergency communications in some regions.
2. Twitter Outage – July 11, 2019
Platform affected: Twitter Duration: ~1 hour (with lingering issues) Cause: Internal configuration changes. Impact: Users globally lost access to tweets, notifications, and timelines. Significant due to Twitter’s role in real-time news and crisis communication.
3. Meta Outage – March 5, 2024
Platforms affected: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger Duration: ~2 hours Cause: Backend account infrastructure changes caused users to be logged out and unable to log back in. Impact: Hundreds of millions affected. Came at a politically sensitive moment — just before U.S. Super Tuesday primaries.
4. Snapchat Outage – October 13, 2021
Platform affected: Snapchat Duration: ~3 hours Cause: Server-side configuration error. Impact: Disrupted communications for millions of Gen Z users. Brands and content creators reported sharp drops in engagement during the downtime.
5. YouTube Outage – November 11, 2020
Platforms affected: YouTube, YouTube TV, YouTube Music Duration: ~2 hours Cause: Network issue in Google’s backend. Impact: Videos failed to play or upload. Creators, advertisers, and streamers faced major disruptions, underscoring YouTube's ubiquity in digital life.
6. TikTok Outage – March 2022
Platform affected: TikTok Duration: ~1–2 hours (intermittent) Cause: Undisclosed — TikTok does not typically share technical details. Impact: Feeds froze or showed no content. Impacted tens of millions, especially in TikTok-heavy regions like the U.S. and India.
7. Google Services Outage – December 14, 2020
Services affected: YouTube, Gmail, Google Drive, Meet Duration: ~45 minutes Cause: Authentication system failure due to internal storage quota issue. Impact: Widespread disruption of work, education, and communication during the peak of the pandemic's remote work era.
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