Nairaland (www.nairaland.com), a prominent Nigerian English-language internet forum founded by entrepreneur Seun Osewa on March 8, 2005, caters primarily to Nigerian domestic residents. With over 3.0 million registered users and more than 7.4 million topics created to date, it serves as a hub for real-time information on events in Nigeria, providing unfiltered insights from its users.
Unfortunately, the Nairaland server experienced a disruption when Cloudflare, the hosting provider, took it down due to offensive content. According to a statement from its founder Seun Osewa on X, formerly known as Twitter, he acknowledged:
“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.”
Osewa shared the challenges faced in communication with Cloudflare, expressing frustration with the extended downtime. In response to the protracted delay, he announced plans to change the server host, citing dissatisfaction with Cloudflare’s responsiveness. “Dear Nairaland members & advertisers, I’m very sorry for this unacceptable, ill-timed outage. My neglect of Nairaland is directly responsible. I was also unprepared to move to a new host at a moment’s notice after 9 years with the current host. The process is ongoing but slow.”
The incident underscores the challenges associated with poor regulation and monitoring, emphasizing the need for secure and properly regulated social tech spaces in Nigeria. The Nairaland team remains committed to addressing these issues for a more resilient and efficient online platform.
