YouTube goes DOWN – app and website stops working for thousands of users

YOUTUBE went offline for thousands of users across the globe on Monday after the video platform seemingly crashed.

Both the app and the website went down around midday UK time (7am ET), according to independent website DownDetector.

An hour later, services had been restored. Both the source and scale of the issue are unknown.

YouTube is usually reliable, and wide-scale outages effecting its services are rare.

Users reported on DownDetector, an online outage tracker, that they could not load the homepage, login or play videos.

More than 8,000 people reported issues with the service, according to DownDetector.

A YouTube spokesperson said: “Some people briefly encountered errors, or a slower than normal experience on YouTube today.

“We worked quickly to address the issue. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this caused.”

Users took to social media to vent their frustration at being locked out of the video platform.

One netizen wrote on Twitter: “Is youtube down or am i the only one with issues?”

Another said: “This is becoming a daily drill #YouTubeDOWN again”.

Others reported that the site was working just fine.

One fan tweeted: “Apparently ‘#YouTubeDOWN’ . . . not mine soooooo i dont see what yall talking about”.

More than two billion people log in to YouTube every month.

It’s often cited as the world’s second most popular website after Google. The search giant is YouTube’s parent company.

Here’s what you need to know…

YOUTUBE’S first-ever video was uploaded 15 years ago – on April 23, 2005.
It was a clip posted by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, marking the beginning of the website’s rapid and unstoppable rise to internet dominance.
The video is titled “Me at the zoo”, and is geo-tagged to San Diego.
In the clip, Karim gives a short speech to camera in very low video quality by today’s standards.
He’s standing in a zoo talking about elephants, who can be seen in the background.
YouTube’s inaugural video has now been viewed more than 90.2million times.
It’s received nearly 3million likes and has racked up more around 5.3million comments.
Karim met fellow YouTube co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley while working at PayPal.
The trio went on to create YouTube, although Karim was officially an adviser to the site – rather than being an employee.
He remained relatively unknown until Google purchased YouTube in 2006.
Karim received 137,443 shares of stock, which was worth roughly $64million at the time.
Watch the clip here.