On Monday, Nairaland, an online discussion forum that had been at the top of Nigeria’s search results for nearly 20 years, went down.
On Monday night, frequent visitors to the website reported that they were unable to access it.
A few expressed worries about potential hacking.
@BashirAhmaad wrote on X, “Does anyone have information on what’s happening with Nairaland? Typically, it is part of my nightly routine to check the site before bed, but it appears the page is down tonight. Could it be a technical issue, hacking, or something else?”
Seun Osewa, the site’s creator, asserted that the host had “taken down” the website.
A review of the platform revealed multiple error messages pointing to a server issue, which Osewa admitted was a penalty for failing to see an earlier abuse report that had been sent.
The founder said that even though the offensive content had been taken down, there was still a delay in the server user interface in a series of tweets on Tuesday morning.
Nairaland’s server was taken down because I failed to notice an abuse report that was first sent on the 14th, according to a post made by Osewa. I deleted the objectionable content after it was taken down.
It took hours to get support on how to restart the server because the user interface wasn’t working. Shortly following the forum.
“I’m guessing the content I removed was still cached on Cloudflare servers, allowing them to see it.” I cleared the caches, but they are still not communicating. “I’m hoping they’ll communicate tomorrow.” Please share any suggestions you have for working with abuse teams. My track record is dreadful.”
He added that the site could be restored after 48 hours of review by the host’s abuse team. “The technical support team has informed me that only the abuse team has the power to reinstate our server, that their review could take up to 48 hours, and that nothing can be done to speed up the process,” he said.
I’ve been told that my only option is to wait. “It’s humbling,” he continued.
Meanwhile, platform users have expressed their support, with some suggesting ways to resolve the issues more quickly.
Some of those who responded also urged Osewa to expand Nairaland into a full-fledged social media platform to avoid a repeat occurrence.
