Anyone else getting Google error messages for the first time?

[highplainsdem]

I've been sometimes getting messages saying

500. That's an error.

The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.

This started just minutes ago for me. I managed to get the Google page to open a couple of times, tried to get to a friend's Twitter account to then search Twitter for messages about this, and nothing happened.

Logged out, went online again, tried again, managed to reach Twitter this time, and found a number of tweets about the Google error message

[musette_sf]

1. I'm getting it on image search

I guess the talented artists of the Interwebz are gathering source material en masse

[Fullduplexxx]

2. yep me too -- mar a lardo getting raided is crashing the internet

[flyingfysh]

3. What kind of search did you have to do to see that? When did you first see it?

My son works for Google, and he might know something about it.

[highplainsdem]

5. I'm sure he's been alerted already. I'd been trying to reach Google because of

a post in the Lounge about a Cat Day graphic of some type on Google. Got the error message for the first time then. Minutes earlier I'd used Google for a couple of searches and to check Amazon, had no problem with those. But once this started I was getting the error message almost every time I tried to reach Google,

[Tetrachloride]

4. either Google screwed up or Chinese hackers

[ecstatic]

6. wow. nt

[Groundhawg]

7. No, I use duck duck go.

[Stallion]

8. Me too-but after an hour or so I reset Router and I'm up again

[Abolishinist]

9. Yeah, I was searching for an image in in the last 5 minutes and kept getting that.

I thought it was because of using a VPN.