Nairaland, a prominent news community forum in Nigeria since its inception in 2008, recently experienced an unexpected disruption.
This hiatus was triggered by an overlooked abuse report, an issue that had gone unnoticed until it precipitated a significant setback.
Findings by Nairametrics revealed that the website has been down for approximately 12 hours showing a “Web server is down” error message.
Nairaland Founder, Seun Osewa, disclosed via a social media platform (X) that the site’s hosting service suspended operations following the discovery of this unaddressed abuse report, dating back to earlier in the month.
Osewa took to Twitter to share the sequence of events and the challenges faced in efforts to reinstate the website. Through a series of tweets, he provided insights into the complexities involved in resolving the issue and the steps being taken to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
What Seun Osewa said
- “Nairaland’s server was taken down because I overlooked an abuse report that was originally sent on the 14th. After the takedown, I removed the offensive content. The UI for bringing back the server didn’t work so it took hours to get support on how to get that done.
- “Minutes after the forum was brought back, they took the server down again with no warning. I’m guessing that the content I removed was still cached on Cloudflare servers, so they could still see it. I have cleared the caches now, but they are not communicating. I hope they will communicate tomorrow. If you have any ideas for working with abuse teams, please share. My track record is abysmal.
- See the link to his tweets.
Osewa explained that the technical support team communicated a waiting period of up to 48 hours for the abuse team’s review before the server could be reinstated. Expressing humility, Osewa underscored the limitations in expediting the process.
- “Our host took the server down as punishment for not responding to the abuse report on time. All we need is for a kind human to review the case and reverse the block. It is really a small issue that should have been resolved in less than 2 minutes.”
- His tweets
It is currently unclear which of the posts on the platform may have warranted the shutdown. Nairametrics findings (using website archive platform Wayback Machine) also indicate the last time the site was online was late 18th of December
But as Nairaland experiences this temporary disruption, the incident highlights the ongoing challenges platforms face in managing content responsibly while upholding freedom of expression.
Eeya…..I pray that he finds favour. He will get better with this experience.
Thank you Nairametrics for giving us the update on Nairaland.
Btw, Nairaland was founded by Oluwaseun Osewa in 2005, not 2008 as stated in this your report.
Thank you.
Illustrates the importance of ecosystems. If Nigeria had as much of the chain as possible in-house, that is to say, owned by Nigerians, Mr Osiwa wouldn’t find himself so helpless.
So many online abuses going on in Nairaland without bn handled.
I hope this site is restored and the Administrative Team of Nairaland sit up and cleanse the platform of social abuses.
We want this site up and running please.
Nairaland’s recent server downtime serves as a valuable lesson for online platforms grappling with the complexities of user-generated content.
Nairaland is the most authoritarian social media site there is. It’s a dictatorship with Seun in full control..You make on small mistake and your entire account is Deleted. Seun is simply having a taste of his own medicine.
Not to mention, nairaland will make you swear that you believe in Allah before you can discuss in an Islamic thread, not so for non-christians going into christian threads. All that while ignoring abuse reports.