AWS outage exposes democratic failure of concentration in cloud computing

On Monday 20 October 2025, a global technical failure at Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing division, sent hundreds of applications and services, from Snapchat and Signal to Fortnite and Lloyds Bank offline.

Responding to the outage, Dr Corrine Cath-Speth, ARTICLE 19's Head of Digital, said:

'Once again, we are experiencing how the concentration in the computing industry, in this case in cloud computing, can crash major parts of our internet, all at once. These disruptions are not just technical issues, they're democratic failures.

'When a single provider goes dark, critical services go offline with it - media outlets become inaccessible, secure communication apps like Signal stop functioning, and the infrastructure that serves our digital society crumbles.

'We urgently need diversification in cloud computing. The infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications cannot be dependent on a handful of companies.'

Read more from Dr Corinne Cath-Speth and Don Le in Tech Policy Press: Amazon Cloud Outage Reveals Democratic Deficit in Relying on Big Tech