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Snapchat is suffering its biggest outage, Google could be to blame

Saqib Shah
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A Snapchat outage that began in Europe on Tuesday has now spread to the U.S. Some reports claim that the disruption is also affecting users in Australia. Snapchat, the video-messaging app, has tweeted that its team is aware of the issue and searching for a fix to the disruption in service, which is currently affecting a large portion of its 100-million user base.

Unfortunately for Snapchat, its mainly millennial users have been extremely vocal about the issue, taking to Twitter to voice their dissatisfaction. Among the problems outlined by users are the inability to send and receive messages, live videos not loading, and updates not being received from media providers in the app’s Discovery section.

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You don't realise how much you use snapchat until it's down.

— – (@vilsonm8) December 8, 2015

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why is snapchat down?!! i need to send too many unnecessary ugly selfies to my friends ASAP

— aria (@ariadnaarizal) December 8, 2015

The issue may, however, be entirely out of Snapchat’s ghostly hands. An undisclosed source familiar to the matter claimed the problem lies with Google, specifically the Web giant’s App Engine, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Google’s service, which allows app developers to use its computer infrastructure, cites Snapchat as one of its largest customers. And the Google Cloud Platform reported an “incident” with its App Engine at 10 p.m. PT on Monday.

Although Snapchat has gone down in the past, it is now operating under the watchful eyes of its lucrative media providers — whose regular video updates are also being affected. Close to 20 publishers, including the New York Times and MTV, use the app’s Discovery feature as premium partners.

Alongside its recent push to attract more advertisers by slashing ad prices, Snapchat has also taken the unprecedented step of positioning itself as a breaking news provider. The first such event it covered was the recent mass shooting in California, no doubt wishing to tap into its growing user base, which now watches a staggering six billion videos a day.

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Saqib Shah
Saqib Shah
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
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