YouTube Service Disruption Affects Users
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Feb 18 2026
0mins
Should l Buy GOOG?
Source: Benzinga
- User Impact: According to outage-tracking site Downdetector.com, YouTube experienced a service disruption affecting over 355,470 users in the U.S., causing the homepage to fail to load properly while video playback and playlists remained operational.
- Service Spillover: YouTube TV also faced issues, with Downdetector reporting 8,565 issue reports for the service and 2,790 for Google, indicating limited spillover effects beyond YouTube's main platform.
- Stock Price Reaction: In after-hours trading, Alphabet Class A shares fell by 0.50% and Class C shares dropped by 0.65%, reflecting market concerns over the service disruption, although Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings indicate that GOOG maintains a strong price trend in the medium to long term.
- Lack of Company Response: As of the time of writing, Google and YouTube have not responded to Benzinga's request for comments, which may affect investor confidence in the company's ability to manage technical failures.
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Analyst Views on GOOG
Wall Street analysts forecast GOOG stock price to rise
15 Analyst Rating
14 Buy
1 Hold
0 Sell
Strong Buy
Current: 294.900
Low
255.00
Averages
336.08
High
400.00
Current: 294.900
Low
255.00
Averages
336.08
High
400.00
About GOOG
Alphabet Inc. is a holding company. The Company's segments include Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets. The Google Services segment includes products and services such as ads, Android, Chrome, devices, Google Maps, Google Play, Search, and YouTube. The Google Cloud segment includes infrastructure and platform services, collaboration tools, and other services for enterprise customers. Its Other Bets segment is engaged in the sale of healthcare-related services and Internet services. Its Google Cloud provides enterprise-ready cloud services, including Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace. Google Cloud Platform provides access to solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI) offerings, including its AI infrastructure, Vertex AI platform, and Gemini for Google Cloud; cybersecurity, and data and analytics. Google Workspace includes cloud-based communication and collaboration tools for enterprises, such as Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Meet.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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