UPDATED: Reddit suffered a technical issue Tuesday that made the popular discussion site inaccessible for many users before the company resolved the problems after about five hours.
User reports of problems accessing Reddit’s website and apps spiked around noon PT on Tuesday, topping more than 60,000 outage reports in the U.S. at their peak, according to monitoring site Downdetector.
The Reddit status page posted at 12:18 p.m. PT, “Investigating – Reddit is currently offline. We’re working to identify the issue” and subsequently said the problems stemmed from an “internal systems issue.” In an update at 2:43 p.m. PT, Reddit’s status page said, “We’ve identified a fix which may take some time to implement, in the meantime ready your bananas (or eat them!).”
At 3:37 p.m. PT, Reddit’s main Twitter account posted, “Enjoy the productivity. We’ll be up and running again soon.” Just over two hours later, at 5:41 p.m., the company’s tech team reported that the problems were resolved and “things are back in order.”
5:41 p.m. PT
Enjoy the productivity. We'll be up and running again soon.
— Reddit (@Reddit) March 14, 2023
According to Reddit, there more than 100,000 active communities from around the world across the site, spanning numerous topics and interest areas.
Last month, Reddit revealed a “data security incident” in which a hacker used “a sophisticated phishing campaign” to access some internal documents and business information. The company said it became aware of the phishing attack on Feb. 5 and that info the attack accessed may have included “limited Reddit code, limited contact information for a small number of company contacts and employees (current and former), as well as limited advertiser information.” According to Reddit, no high-risk data was accessed such as credit card details, company financial information, account passwords, campaign strategy or performance.
In December 2021, Reddit confidentially submitted a draft registration statement with the SEC for a proposed initial public offering. The company has been valued at more than $10 billion.
Launched in 2005, Reddit was acquired by Condé Nast the following year. In 2011, Condé Nast spun out the site, while Advance Publications, parent of Condé Nast, retains a minority stake.
