An outage on Cloudflare, a US-based internet infrastructure company that supports millions of websites globally, has disrupted service across major websites globally, including X, OpenAI, Canva, Spotify and major Nigerian news outlets.
The disruption affected websites including PUNCH Newspapers, Vanguard, Daily Trust, Nairaland, The Nation, The Guardian Nigeria, and Bellanaija, among others.
Visitors to the respective sites were met with Cloudflare error messages, leaving users unable to access news, features, and timely updates.
The outage forced readers to rely on social media channels and blogs for updates, raising concerns about credibility and misinformation.
Media platforms like PUNCH, The Nation, and Vanguard rely heavily on daily web traffic for audience engagement, meaning the outage likely resulted in significant drops in metrics and online reach. This also equates to a drop in revenue targets for the day.
Social media updates partially filled the gap, with headline and lead captions, as media organisations took to social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to keep followers informed.
However, the simultaneous X outage, due to Cloudflare issues, further disrupted the flow of information, limiting timely access to news for many users.
Cloudflare, a provider of content delivery network and internet security services, acknowledged the technical problems on its status page, stating, “We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem. More updates to follow shortly.”
The company also noted that scheduled maintenance in its Santiago, Chile data centre could have contributed to the outage:
“Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress.
“Traffic might be rerouted from this location, hence there is a possibility of a slight increase in latency during this maintenance window for end-users in the affected region.”
The outage illustrates the growing dependence of Nigerian newsrooms on global infrastructure for uninterrupted online delivery.
Access to the affected sites was gradually restored later in the day.
