Outage Rumor Monitoring: Detect Incidents Before Status Pages Update
Status pages are authoritative, but rarely first. In many incidents, user chatter appears minutes before an official post. If you run customer-facing systems, those minutes matter.
What to Monitor
- "X is down" style user reports across multiple sources.
- Error spikes tied to a specific provider or region.
- Routing, DNS, or auth failures that repeat across unrelated teams.
What Not to Do
- Do not page everyone on a single social post.
- Do not rely on one source platform.
- Do not wait for perfect certainty before preparing a response.
Three-Stage Escalation Model
Stage 1: Watch
One to two weak signals. Notify incident lead only.
Stage 2: Investigate
Clustered mentions from independent sources. Open an internal incident thread.
Stage 3: Respond
Strong overlap + internal telemetry confirms impact. Trigger on-call and customer comms workflow.
Early warning should improve readiness, not create panic. Treat rumor alerts as context until telemetry or official sources confirm scope.
Starter Prompt
"Notify me when credible rumors of AWS, Azure, or Cloudflare outage spread across multiple sources, especially auth, DNS, or API failures."
Build Your Outage Stack
Pair rumor alerts with synthetic monitoring and vendor status endpoints. The combination reduces blind spots and improves first-response speed.