YouTube, the widely used video streaming platform owned by Google, experienced widespread issues on Friday, December 19, 2025, impacting thousands of users in India and the United States. Reports of the outage began surfacing early in the day, with users taking to social media to express their frustration.
According to Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages, there were more than 3,500 reports of problems with YouTube. The issues appear to be affecting various aspects of the platform, with 54% of users reporting server connection problems, 35% experiencing website-related issues, and 11% encountering difficulties with video streaming. Times Now Tech also experienced slow loading times and playback delays. Republic World reported over 10,800 reports of issues with the streaming platform.
The outage impacted users in various regions. In India, reports against the YouTube outage reached approximately 3,336. Of these, 53% reported server connection issues, 34% reported website issues, and 13% faced video streaming problems.
It is not yet clear what is causing the widespread issues. YouTube has yet to release an official statement regarding the outage. The Economic Times reported that YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time YouTube has experienced an outage. Outages have become almost common occurrences across several platforms. In October, YouTube experienced an outage that lasted up to two hours, preventing users from playing videos. Other major online platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare, have also experienced significant disruptions in 2025.
The outage comes as YouTube is also navigating changes in its relationship with Billboard. YouTube will stop sharing its music data with Billboard in January, due to disagreements over how Billboard weights streams when calculating its U.S. music charts. YouTube favors equal weighting for all streams, regardless of whether they are subscription-based or ad-supported.
The current outage is a developing story, and updates will be provided as more information becomes available. Users are advised to check YouTube's official social media channels for updates and potential solutions.
