On Thursday afternoon, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network experienced a rare, widespread outage leaving tens of thousands of users without connectivity worldwide. The disruption, which began around 3:13 PM ET, affected Starlink’s constellation of over 7,000 low-Earth orbit satellites—the world’s largest.

Users from the remote Canadian Arctic to war-torn Ukraine reported loss of service. Notably, critical operations such as the Ukrainian military’s frontline communications were hit, further highlighting the growing reliance on Starlink in conflict and remote zones. According to internet monitoring service Downdetector, nearly 30,000 outage reports poured in within an hour, with 86% citing network disruptions and 14% reporting a complete blackout.

The outage’s timing was notable, coinciding with the launch of Starlink’s new direct-to-device satellite service in partnership with T-Mobile. Experts like Kentik’s Doug Madory called it a “total outage,” a highly uncommon event for Starlink.

Starlink acknowledged the issue on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “We are currently in a network outage and are actively implementing a solution.” Their website also experienced heavy traffic, resulting in error messages for users seeking updates.

Reddit, one of the world’s leading social media platforms, grappled with a widespread outage Wednesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of users unable to access content or participate in their favorite communities. Downdetector, a popular service that tracks online outages, showed user reports soaring past 100,000 at the peak of the disruption.

The outage began around 11:40 a.m. ET, quickly raising alarm as both desktop and mobile users encountered persistent error messages and empty home feeds. Reports poured in from across the globe, spanning the U.S., India, and major cities in Europe, underscoring Reddit’s broad international reach.

Reddit acknowledged the issue on its status page just after noon Eastern, stating:

“We have identified the cause of the issue and are working to address it.”

Shortly thereafter, the company’s engineering team deployed a fix intended to stabilize platform performance. Service was gradually restored over the next two hours, with normal access returning for most users by early afternoon.

Courtney Geesey-Dorr, a Reddit spokesperson, told CNN that “an update we made caused some instability,” adding that Reddit was “seeing Reddit ramp back up” as systems recovered.

This latest incident is part of a series of technical disruptions plaguing Reddit over the past year. Last month, a similar outage affected roughly 31,000 users. In April 2025, another global disruption temporarily took the site offline for more than 100,000 users, highlighting the ongoing challenges faced by social platforms handling massive traffic and constant technical updates.

As services came back online, users took to rival platforms to exchange jokes and commiserate over their lost Reddit time, with some humorously noting it was a chance to “touch grass” between digital sessions.

Savannah International Airport-July 19, 2024 Businesses are retreating to the old way of customer support today. A worldwide internet outage has affected airports, banks, media outlets, emergency services, and more. The skill of writing on whiteboards, blackboards, and note taking are essential today. The outage is a result of a software update that went wrong. The developer has high confidence…