PARIS: Major websites, including social network X and AI chatbot ChatGPT, were disrupted on Tuesday after US online services provider Cloudflare said it had been affected by a &quot;latent bug.&quot; Web monitoring service Downdetector recorded disruptions affecting users of X, the video game &quot;League of Legends,&quot; and some Google and OpenAI services, including ChatGPT. Cloudflare, which specialises in online security and says it manages some 20% of global internet traffic, saw its share price slump 1.5% in early trading. &quot;Earlier today, we failed our customers and the broader internet when a problem in the Cloudflare network impacted large amounts of traffic that rely on us,&quot; chief technology officer Dane Knecht wrote on X, adding that the problem had since been resolved. &quot;In short, a latent bug in a service underpinning our bot mitigation capability started to crash after a routine configuration change we made.&quot; The company said earlier there had been &quot;a spike in unusual traffic&quot; to one of its services. The outage was reminiscent of those that hit Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft cloud services last month, disrupting some online services for video game companies, businesses, and transport firms. &quot;This incident, as with the recent outage at AWS, shows how reliant some very important internet-based services are on a relatively few major players,&quot; said Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey in England. &quot;It&#39;s a double-edged sword as these service providers need to be large to provide the scale and global reach required by big brands. But when they fail, the impact can be significant.&quot; The CloudFlare outage is the latest in a trend of infrastructure providers going offline and taking swaths of the internet with them, according to Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne. While Cloudflare carries about a fifth of global internet traffic, it touches a third of the world&#39;s top websites &mdash; powering retailers like Shopify and AI providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as smartphone apps and streaming services, the analyst noted. &quot;We&#39;re seeing outages happen more frequently, and they&#39;re taking longer to fix,&quot; Bourne said. &quot;That&#39;s a symptom of strained infrastructure: increased AI load, streaming demand, and aging capacity all pushing systems past the edge.&quot; The latest outage spotlights the importance of seemingly mundane internet infrastructure to the &quot;AI Revolution&quot;, according to Cornell University Tech Policy Institute director Sarah Kreps. &quot;The issue exposes the reality that this multi-billion, even trillion dollar investment in AI is only as reliable as its least scrutinized third-party infrastructure,&quot; Kreps said. Knecht put out word on X that by day&#39;s end, Cloudflare will share details of what went wrong, along with what the company plans to do to prevent it from happening again.

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ChatGPT among major platforms disrupted as Cloudflare technical failure caused widespread global internet outages affecting thousands of users worldwide

Cloudflare bug takes chunk of web offline

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ISLAMABAD: Global internet freedom has declined for the fifteenth consecutive year as countries increasingly impose restrictions in an effort to manipulate the flow of information and online expression.&nbsp; Freedom House, a Washington DC organization monitoring democracy and threats to freedom worldwide, released its latest &ldquo;Freedom on the Net 2025: An Uncertain Future for the Global Internet&rdquo; report on Thursday, classifying countries as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free based on a 100-point scale that evaluates obstacles to access, limits on online content, and violations of user rights, including surveillance, censorship, arrests, and restrictions on digital expression. <img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/54a35df5-09de-4454-8d55-6080d06cf4fa.png" style="width: 618px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib fr-fil">This infographic is from the Freedom on the Net 2025 report, as seen on www.freedomhouse.org.&nbsp; Of the 72 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2025, conditions deteriorated in 28 and improved in 17, with South Asia reflecting both spectrums. In India, internet freedom has continued to deteriorate, with the country scoring 51 out of 100 in 2025, remaining classified as &ldquo;Partly Free.&rdquo; The Indian government has increasingly relied on internet shutdowns during political unrest and regional conflicts, with Freedom House noting that &ldquo;authorities in the state of Manipur imposed a weeks-long internet shutdown during protests in November 2024.&rdquo; Pakistan scored 27 out of 100. The government has recognized that protests and unrest can disrupt connectivity and have an impact on internet access and digital rights.&nbsp; Bangladesh, however, saw the most improvement this year following a student-led uprising in August 2024, which resulted in the ousting of its former leadership. The interim administration implemented reforms that eased limitations on online expression and promised increased digital transparency. Despite these advances, the report acknowledges that Bangladesh continues to face problems, including frequent shutdowns and arrests under expansive cybercrime regulations. Across the region, Freedom House identified a larger trend: governments are increasingly using digital tools to control narratives, manage opposition, and impact election outcomes. This is consistent with the report&#39;s global trend, which shows that governmental responses to protests and elections have contributed to some of the greatest decreases in internet freedom since the index&#39;s inception fifteen years ago. These tactics aren&#39;t as overt as blatant censorship but have a significant impact on public discourse. <img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/7fabe811-3995-4256-aa32-ae19e7ef973b.png" style="width: 494px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib fr-fil">This infographic is from the Freedom on the Net 2025 report, as seen on www.freedomhouse.org.&nbsp; What is the future of Internet Freedom?The report emphasizes the importance of legal, technical, and institutional improvements in defending internet freedom.&nbsp; The immediate future will depend on how governments deploy incentives for and controls over the next wave of technological innovation, Freedom House says. Governments are recommended to limit shutdowns, censorship, and surveillance while also establishing independent oversight mechanisms to examine content-blocking policies.&nbsp; Legal safeguards need to protect journalists, activists, and everyday users against arrest or harassment for free speech on the internet.

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Bangladesh

Global internet freedom declined for the fifteenth year, with South Asian countries facing restrictions, censorship, and digital surveillance. Governments increasingly control online spaces, while legal, technical, and institutional reforms are needed to safeguard expression and digital rights.

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Cloudflare bug takes chunk of web offline

Internet freedom: Why South Asia is falling behind?