Popular online platform, Nairaland is down

• Some users raised concerns over possible hacking

One of Nigeria’s most popular websites, Nairaland.com, is down.

Nairaland, an online discussion forum, that has dominated Nigeria’s web rankings for almost 20 years, went down on Monday.

Several users of the platform, on Monday night, expressed their concerns when they were unable to access it.

Some of them raised concerns over possible 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?”

Another X user @rani_reine, tweeted, “No wonder. I have tried logging in multiple times in the past six hours. Please get it back.”

A Checks on the platform showed an error message ‘Host Error,’ which read that the web server was not returning a connection, hence the reason why the site’s page wasn’t displaying.

Meanwhile, the founder, Seun Osewa, said the site was “taken down” by the host.

In a series of tweets early Tuesday, the founder noted that the site was brought down due to an abusive report which he had “overlooked” after it was “originally sent on the 14th.”

He added that the server was taken down by the host after which he “removed the offensive content.”

However, he stated that after taking some hours to get support on how to resolve the issue, the forum was restored on the server.

Osewa added that matters took another turn when “they took the server down again with no warning.”

The tweets read further, “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.

“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.”