EDITOR'S NOTE: An AWS spokesperson reached out, clarifying that its platform did not cause downtime to Snapchat and Facebook Messenger as AWS had no problems during the downtime issues of the social media platforms.  

Amazon Web Services or AWS outage that happened earlier this week had affected Amazon's Alexa, Disney+, "League of Legends," and more. Another AWS issue is causing downtime for Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and other social media sites.

Snapchat and Other Social Media Sites are Down

According to Down Detector, the outage happened on the morning of Dec. 10, and Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram had several issues. Notably, it appears that AWS is having issues that could end up being connected to the issues.

Snapchat confirmed the issue on Twitter and stated that users are having problems logging in to the social media app. Meanwhile, users of Facebook Messenger said that their messages are not going through.

AWS is also getting error messages telling users "it is working on the issue and expected to be resolved in a couple of hours," according to 9to5Mac.

Also Read: Who is Fastly? Here's Why the CDN Caused Outage to Top Websites Like Amazon, Reddit, Twitch, and MORE

How AWS Outage Effected the US

Amazon Web Services or AWS was affected by an outage that lasted hours on Dec. 9. It is the leading provider of cloud infrastructure technology for several businesses

Because of the AWS outage, Whole Foods customers had canceled orders, Amazon's robotic vacuum cleaners stopped working, and parts of Amazon's retail operation went on a standstill.

Several popular websites and services that are constantly used went offline. This angered a lot of users as it has affected their work and had prevented them from completing their task for that day.

According to CNBC, AWS controlled 33% of the cloud infrastructure market in the world. The Synergy Research Group added that Microsoft controlled 20% and Google controlled 10%.

The revenue at AWS increased 39% in the third quarter from a year earlier to %16.1 billion. It outpaced the growth of 15% across all of Amazon.

The outage on Dec. 9 started around 11:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time and was resolved a couple of hours later.

Amazon stated that the service issues with AWS main US-East-1 region, located in Northern Virginia, were causing issues for its warehouse and delivery network. The company did not reveal what caused the downtime.

The delivery operations and fulfillment center were brought to a standstill in some areas in the United States.

The outage took down several internal apps used to load delivery routes and scan packages. This was confirmed by workers who posted about the incident on Facebook groups.

The workers were told to wait in the break rooms and loading areas. An Amazon driver posted a video of his co-worker performing karaoke in a warehouse on Twitter.

Whole Foods, a company acquired by Amazon in 2017 for $13.7 billion, canceled orders for some customers who were affected by the outage.

The company offered refunds to its customers. Meanwhile, Amazon Flex drivers and contractors who delivered the goods using their own cars were promised a consolation after they were sent home because shifts were unavailable, according to The Verge.

The AWS outage crippled the retail operations of Amazon at a very inconvenient time. Amazon's traffic is clogged because it is the peak of the holiday season, and the e-commerce giant is hit with thousands of orders from shoppers.

Third-party merchants who make up half of all the products sold on Amazon rely on a couple of weeks at the end of the year for a better percentage of their annual sales.

Amazon's AWS is also working on fully rolling out the 5G network that gives faster connectivity.

Related Article:Fastly CDN Network Outage: Amazon, Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, and More are Down - Issue Resolved Within An Hour

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Written by Sophie Webster