Some of the worlds biggest websites suffer internet outage

It's affected Amazon, gov.uk and newspaper websites amongst others

Author: Chris MaskeryPublished 8th Jun 2021
Last updated 8th Jun 2021

Websites around the world have been offline due to a problem with a leading internet content delivery service

The UK Government’s website was among the number giving error messages on Tuesday morning.

Websites for several leading media companies – including the Guardian, Financial Times, Independent, and the New York Times – were also down.

Websites affected show the error message: 'Error 503 Service Unavailable'

Other sites affected include Amazon, the online discussion platform Reddit and French newspaper Le Monde.

What's happening to the websites?

US firm Fastly, a content delivery network (CDN) which helps websites speed up loading times and present their content to users, has confirmed it is looking into an issue which had a “potential impact to performance with our CDN services”.

Websites affected by the outage appeared to be gradually coming back online shortly before midday, but with slow loading times.

Fastly, which has been widely reported as the source of the problem, updated its service status page, saying: “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.”

A number of the affected websites had earlier begun to confirm that the issue was linked to Fastly.

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