Nairaland
 | |
Type of site | Internet forum |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | Lagos, Nigeria |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Founder(s) | Seun Osewa |
| URL | nairaland.com |
| IPv6 support | No |
| Advertising | Banner ads |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional[notes 1] |
| Users | 2.58 million registered users (November 2020) |
| Launched | March 8, 2005 |
| Current status | Active |
Nairaland is a Nigerian English-language internet forum. Founded by Nigerian entrepreneur Seun Osewa on March 8, 2005, it is targeted primarily at Nigerian domestic residents and is the 6th most visited website in Nigeria.[1]
Rankings[]
As of April 2020, Nairaland ranks as the 788th-most-visited website in the world and 6th most-visited website in Nigeria, according to Alexa Internet, with 83.0% of its user base coming from Nigeria, followed by the United States at 4.3% and India at 3.8%. It is the second-most visited local website, next to online bookmaker Bet9ja.[2][3]
It currently has over 2.64 million registered users with over 6.19 million topics created to date, and it is estimated that approximately 3% of Nigerian Internet users are registered on Nairaland, compared to Facebook's 11 million Nigerian users, which corresponds to approximately 20% of the local Internet population.[4] Registration is only necessary for posting, commenting or liking posts.
Incidents[]
2014 4chan prank[]
During the Western African Ebola virus epidemic, Nairaland was the target of a prank in 2014 from users of the imageboard 4chan, who registered on the website to create false claims that Americans and Europeans were spreading the ebola virus in magical rituals through worship of 4chan's "Ebola-chan" meme (an anime personification of the ebola virus).[5]
2014 down period[]
On June 22, 2014, following a successful hacking attempt, Nairaland went offline briefly.[6] The hackers were able to gain access to, and wipe the contents of, the website's host server and backup. Three days later, it was back online after some data had been recovered from a remote backup. However, user posts and registration between January 10, 2014 and June 22, 2014 was lost. Users with lost accounts were required to re-register.[7]
QAnon conspiracy theory[]
In 2020, The Daily Beast reported that some users on Nairaland were promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory.[8]
Notes[]
- ^ Nairaland can be viewed without an account but registration is required to post, comment or like.
2. Nairaland do not allow multiple posts from their registered users like 3 to 5 posts within a space of 5 minutes in order to avoid spamming.
References[]
- ^ "30 Under 30: Africa's Best Young Entrepreneurs". Forbes. Retrieved 2013-11-21.
- ^ Obi, Gospel O. (May 2, 2020). "Top 20 Local Websites in Nigeria in 2020". www.iabcafrica.com. IABC Africa. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
- ^ "Top sites in Nigeria", Alexa Page Rank, 23 April 2020, retrieved 26 April 2020
- ^ Latest Nigeria News. "Over 11 million Nigerians on Facebook; becomes Facebook's largest user base in Sub Saharan Africa". Retrieved 31 January 2014.
- ^ Dewey, Caitlin (September 22, 2014). "4Chan's latest, terrible 'prank': Convincing West Africans that Ebola doctors actually worship the disease". The Washington Post.
- ^ Nigerian News, Portal. "Nairaland down since Sunday, May not be Up soon". Nigeriannewsportal.com. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
- ^ "Nairaland status monitoring". Retrieved 2014-07-03.
- ^ Jr, Philip Obaji (3 August 2020). "QAnon's New Conspiracy: Democrats Are Stealing African Children". The Daily Beast.
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