Reddit goes down, X hit by disruptions; cause unclear

UPDATE: Both platforms appear to have returned to normal functionality, as user complaints have dropped significantly since around 3:15 p.m. ET.

Social media platforms Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) experienced technical issues on Thursday afternoon, with problems beginning around 2:30 p.m. ET, according to outage monitoring site DownDetector.

Users across the U.S. reported being unable to access Reddit entirely, with both the website and mobile app appearing completely offline. Visitors attempting to load the site were met with error messages or blank pages, suggesting a widespread service disruption.

X also saw a significant uptick in user complaints, particularly around slow load times and problems sending direct messages. While the platform remained partially functional, users reported general sluggishness and intermittent service interruptions.

Some users also reported issues with Amazon Web Services (AWS), though it was unclear if the problems were related. AWS is widely used by many websites and platforms to power their backend infrastructure, but the cause of the outages remains unknown.

DownDetector, which tracks online service disruptions based on user reports, showed a sharp spike in issues for all three services around the same time.