YouTube down: users shown '500 Internal Server Error' while trying to access Google's video sharing site

Update: Find out about YouTube's latest outage here

Robert Kyncl, YouTube Chief Business Officer unveils 'YouTube Red' - a new subscription service including original programming, at the company's LA offices (AP)

YouTube appears to be down, with users just presented with a huge string of characters if they try to access the site.

Update 21/02/2017: Read about YouTube's latest outage here

When heading to YouTube.com, users are presented with a warning that there is a "500 Internal Server Error". A joking message says that "A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation", followed by a long string of text.

But the site doesn't appear to be broken for all users. Accessing the site from The Independent's office did not bring up the error.

Many social media users pointed out that the outage came very soon after YouTube launched its new paid-for service, called Red.

Some suggested that the site had been hacked. But such messages usually come about from internal errors with the website.