Internet outage disrupts many of the world's biggest websites and apps
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amazon’s cloud computing service says it has fixed the underlying problem that has disrupted many of the world's biggest websites and apps, but a full recovery will take some more time. Also in the programme: We'll hear about a groundbreaking eye surgery that allows some blind patients to instantly be able to see again; and China's Communist leaders are meeting in Beijing, could Xi Jinping indicate a possible successor?
(Photo shows people walking past the logo of Amazon Web Services (AWS) at the India Mobile Congress 2025 in New Delhi, India, October 8, 2025. Credit: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello, I'm Celia Hatt and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm coming to you live from London. |
| 0:16.1 | Today on the program, we've got a medical breakthrough and the latest on the Gaza ceasefire |
| 0:21.5 | and what's happening in Ukraine. |
| 0:23.8 | But first, your mobile phone might already have tipped you off to our top story, |
| 0:29.4 | and that's the major global outage of a number of the world's biggest websites and apps |
| 0:34.2 | from Snapchat and Zoom to major commercial banks. |
| 0:38.4 | They can all be traced back to web services provided by the tech giant Amazon. |
| 0:43.4 | Some of those sites and apps are slowly coming back online, but problems remain for many users. |
| 0:50.3 | Joining me now is our technology reporter, Shona McCallum. |
| 0:53.9 | Shona, tell us about the size of this outage. |
| 0:57.5 | Who was affected? |
| 1:00.0 | Yes, well, this is one of these outages and probably one of the biggest ones that we've seen in some time. |
| 1:06.5 | Over a thousand companies affected by the outage. |
| 1:10.1 | You mentioned some of them, Snapchat, Reddit, |
| 1:13.3 | Roblox, quite a lot of banking apps, games, and it really is affecting a whole plethora |
| 1:20.3 | of different companies. And the way that the tech journalists that we use is site is called |
| 1:26.1 | Down Detector. And we've seen there that the |
| 1:29.3 | issues that they were facing were over four million just in a couple of hours this morning |
| 1:35.0 | and that's more than double what they would normally see in a day and so you can see the volume |
| 1:40.2 | really right across the world and the issue appears to be with Amazon web services. |
| 1:46.7 | They are the most comprehensive cloud service. Cloud service might be something that you're familiar |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.