Why the internet was so screwed up today

Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3, the cloud computing service that backs many major sites and services, including Netflix, Airbnb, Giphy and 148,213 other sites, suffered a disruption on Tuesday, bringing large parts of the internet to a grinding halt. 

Many of Mashable's AWS-backed systems, including Slack, Trello and our internal CMS slowed or became unresponsive shortly after 1 p.m. ET, confirming the disruption. 

While the cause of the outage still hasn't been confirmed, Amazon acknowledged the problems on the AWS Twitter account and promised anxious users it was hard at work on a fix.