“From Outages to Oversight: Cloud Failures, Meta’s Antitrust Win, Crypto Turbulence, and the Push for a Unified AI Framework”

19th November 2025

There were major disruptions and developments across tech, finance, and policy. Cloudflare outages briefly knocked platforms like X, Spotify, and ChatGPT offline, exposing the risks of relying on a few cloud providers. Meta won a landmark FTC antitrust case, with a judge ruling it does not currently hold a monopoly over social networking, amid evolving competition from TikTok. In crypto, over $1 billion in liquidations hit 190,000 traders as high leverage and thin liquidity intensified volatility. Meanwhile, President Trump called for a single federal AI regulatory framework, warning that state-level rules could stifle innovation and allow China to catch up in the global AI race. All this and more in today’s Read It and Eat! 

Major News 

• X, Spotify, and ChatGPT Among Platforms Disrupted by Cloudflare's Widespread Outage

Several major online platforms, including social media site X, music streaming service Spotify, and AI chatbot ChatGPT, experienced outages affecting thousands of users on Tuesday. Other services impacted included Facebook, AWS, bet365, Canva, BrightHR, and the multiplayer game League of Legends, according to Downdetector.com. Over 10,000 reports were linked to Cloudflare, a web infrastructure company that supports many online businesses.

The disruptions began around 11 a.m., with some websites, including X, briefly returning online before encountering further issues. Cloudflare attributed the outages to an “internal server error” on its network. Around a fifth of all global websites rely on Cloudflare’s services for network and security functions, highlighting the scale of the impact. The company confirmed it was experiencing “internal service degradation” and warned that some users might continue to see higher-than-normal error rates as remediation efforts continued. By 1:09 p.m., Cloudflare announced it had identified the issue and was rolling out a fix. The outage coincided with scheduled maintenance at Cloudflare’s Santiago (SCL) data center.

Graeme Stewart, head of public sector at cybersecurity firm Check Point, explained that these outages reflect a broader pattern seen recently with AWS and Azure: “Platforms of this size are efficient and vast, and when one slips, the impact spreads fast. Everyone feels it at once.” He emphasized that the affected platforms didn’t fail independently but rather relied on a single layer that stopped responding.

Stewart also highlighted a systemic vulnerability in the modern internet: “Many organizations still route everything through one path with no meaningful backup. When that route fails, there is no fallback. The internet was meant to be resilient through distribution, yet we’ve concentrated enormous amounts of global traffic into a handful of cloud providers.” The incident underscores the fragility of today’s interconnected digital ecosystem and the cascading effects when a major infrastructure provider experiences problems. Finance.Yahoo 

• Meta Wins Landmark FTC Antitrust Case Over Instagram and WhatsApp

Meta has secured a major legal victory, one that could have dramatically reshaped the company if it had gone the other way. In a ruling released Tuesday, US District Judge James Boasberg determined that the company does not currently hold a monopoly in social networking, effectively ending the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to force a breakup of Instagram and WhatsApp. This decision stands in sharp contrast to recent antitrust rulings against Google, and Boasberg made it clear that the FTC’s case relied too heavily on the past. While the agency argued that Meta’s strategy of buying potential rivals reflected anticompetitive intent, the court insisted that regulators must prove Meta holds monopoly power now, not a decade ago.

A significant part of the FTC’s argument centered on old emails from Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders, including the now-famous sentiment that “it is better to buy than compete.” While prosecutors claimed these internal messages showed a pattern of neutralizing threats, Zuckerberg pushed back during testimony, noting that many of the documents were written early in discussions and did not capture the full context. More importantly, Boasberg emphasized that the case was not about whether Facebook’s past acquisitions of Instagram or WhatsApp were appropriate the FTC had approved them at the time but whether Meta’s present-day behavior constitutes an active monopoly. On that point, the judge said the agency had not demonstrated a “current or imminent” legal violation.

A major factor influencing the court’s decision was the fast-changing nature of the social media landscape. When the FTC filed its case in 2020, TikTok was barely mentioned; now, it is Meta’s primary competitor. Boasberg wrote that the boundaries that once separated “social networking” from broader “social media” have blurred to the point of irrelevance, echoing the idea that “no man steps into the same river twice.” Analysts agree that Meta’s rapid moves to keep pace with rivals, especially TikTok, illustrate just how competitive the market has become. At the same time, they note that Meta still faces other regulatory challenges ahead, including major trials related to children’s mental health next year.

Meta welcomed the ruling, saying it affirms the reality of strong competition across digital platforms and reflects the company’s ongoing role in American innovation. For investors, the decision was largely expected Meta’s stock moved only slightly on the day of the announcement. The case also served as a reminder of how transformative Instagram and WhatsApp have been for Meta’s evolution, helping it transition from desktop to mobile and maintain relevance among younger users. While the FTC argued that these acquisitions created an unfair moat, the court ultimately determined that the market has evolved too dramatically for such a claim to hold today. Meta may have won this battle, but the broader regulatory scrutiny facing Big Tech is far from over. Finance.Yahoo

• Crypto’s New Normal: Another $1 Billion Liquidation Day Shakes the Market

The cryptocurrency market is once again in turmoil, with over $1 billion in liquidations recorded over the past 24 hours, affecting more than 190,000 traders. These billion-dollar liquidation events have become increasingly common in late 2025, highlighting a shift in market dynamics and raising questions about whether extreme volatility and leveraged trading losses are now permanent features of the crypto ecosystem.

According to Coinglass, $1.03 billion in positions were liquidated in the last day alone. Long positions bore the brunt, accounting for $726.5 million of the total, while shorts represented $308.2 million. The largest single liquidation came from a BTC-USD position worth $96.51 million on the decentralized perpetual exchange Hyperliquid. This flurry of forced liquidations coincided with a 3.7% decline in the broader crypto market: Bitcoin briefly slipped below $90,000 before rebounding to over $91,000, and Ethereum dipped under $3,000, trading around $3,050 at the time of writing a drop of 4.4% in 24 hours. Major altcoins including XRP, BNB, and Solana also fell 3–4%, leaving the entire large-cap sector in the red.

The frequency of these liquidation events points to a structurally fragile market. Over the past week alone, cumulative liquidations exceeded $5 billion, and the broader cryptocurrency sector has lost roughly $1.2 trillion in market capitalization over 42 days a 28% decline. Even with relatively stable fundamentals, such as recent statements from President Trump emphasizing U.S. leadership in crypto, high leverage and institutional outflows have created an environment where a small 2% price swing can wipe out heavily leveraged trades. As The Kobeissi Letter notes, “Excessive levels of leverage have resulted in a seemingly hypersensitive market.”

The mechanics behind these liquidations create a self-reinforcing cycle: margin calls trigger forced selling, pushing prices down further, which in turn forces more liquidations and drains liquidity. This feedback loop explains why $500 million-plus wipeouts now occur regularly and why $1 billion liquidation days no longer feel exceptional. As leverage remains elevated and liquidity thin, the crypto market remains vulnerable to further extreme swings. Without a reset in leverage or a return of institutional stability, traders should brace for more volatile, high-magnitude moves in the coming weeks. Finance.Yahoo

• Trump Pushes for a Single National AI Rulebook

President Donald Trump is calling on Congress to establish a single national framework for regulating artificial intelligence, warning that leaving the issue to individual states could create confusion and slow innovation. In a post on social media, Trump argued that AI is developing too quickly and is too strategically significant for the U.S. to allow what he described as a “patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.” Without a unified standard, he said, the technology risks being overregulated before it fully matures.

This push aligns closely with Trump's broader agenda of making the U.S. the global leader in artificial intelligence. Early in his second term, he directed federal agencies to build a sweeping AI Action Plan designed to position America as “the world capital in artificial intelligence.” His message this week underscored that mission, suggesting that regulatory clarity is just as important as innovation if the U.S. hopes to outpace competitors especially China. In Trump’s words, fragmented rules could give Beijing an easy opening to “catch us in the AI race.”

At the same time, lawmakers and experts continue to raise concerns about the risks AI poses, including election interference, advanced fraud schemes, and potential job losses. Some states have begun crafting their own AI legislation to get ahead of those challenges. But Trump warned that without coordination at the federal level, those efforts could unintentionally stifle progress and create compliance headaches for companies trying to develop and deploy new technology across state lines.

While Trump did not offer specifics on what the federal standard should include, he urged Congress to act quickly either by passing a standalone bill or by inserting the policy into the National Defense Authorization Act. In his view, locking AI rules into national law would ensure consistent oversight, reduce regulatory red tape, and strengthen America’s competitive advantage. “Put it in the NDAA,” he wrote, “and nobody will ever be able to compete with America.” Reuters 

Minor News 

• Charlie Javice Pursues $142M in Legal Costs from JPMorgan. Morning Brew 

  
  

• Former Investment Banker Charged in Insider Trading Scheme. Bloomberg 

  
  

• Google CEO Warns AI Bubble Could Affect Any Company. Reuters 

  
  

• Meta’s John Hegeman to Leave as CRO, Plans New Startup. Reuters 

  
  

• Google Unveils Gemini 3 AI Model. CNBC 

  
  

• UK’s Jet2 Projects Strong Annual Profit, Announces Share Buyback Program. Reuters 

  
  

• Nvidia’s Switch to Smartphone-Style Memory Could Double Server Prices by 2026 Counterpoint. Reuters 

  
  

• EU Court Rejects Amazon’s Bid to Remove EU Tech Label. Reuters