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| Linda Ikeji (Photo source: 360Nobs.com) |
So what actually happened? In a new twist to the ongoing plagiarism scandal, blogger Linda Ikeji has had her blog restored by Google.
It
would indeed be a cliche to start by saying the whole story played out
like an original Nollywood plot. But there was a real threat to the efforts of a young entrepreneur who has carved a niche for herself in the news and entertainment blogosphere. The story involved Linda Ikeji, her blog, Linda Ikeji Blog (LIB) and a dodgy allegation of plagiarism, it now would appear. For about 72 hours, many pockets of events transpired. The long and short of it was that LIB was shutdown by Google and now it is up again. Around
midnight Friday, popular blog, Linda Ikeji’s blog was restored on the
Google blogging platform, Blogger.
Embattled
blogger, Linda Ikeji, announced the news on Twitter.
PREMIUM TIMES report goes on to note: “And
Google restores lindaikeji.blogspot.com. I hear it’s a record. Normally it
takes weeks or months to restore a deleted blog. But not LIB,” she tweeted six
minutes after midnight.
In
a follow up tweets, she explained that Google had restored the blog after
verifying that the allegations of plagiarism were “bogus and deliberate
sabotage.”
On
Thursday night, a few hours before announcing the restoration of her blogger
site, Ms. Ikeji had directed readers to her new
site, lindaikejionline.com.
The
blog was shut down on Wednesday.
On
Thursday, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Google’s communication and public
affairs manager for Anglophone West Africa had declined to categorically say why
it shut down the blog.
Mr.
Kola-Ogunlade said the company does not discuss individual accounts.
However,
speaking generally, he said: “We take violations of policies very seriously as
such activities diminish the experience for our users. When we are notified of
the existence of content that may violate our Terms of Service, we act quickly
to review it and determine whether it actually violates our policies. If we determine
that it does, we remove it immediately.”
In
a tweet following the blog’s shutdown, Ms. Ikeji had informed her
followers that it was still up on lindaikeji.mobi; apparently, a
stop-gap arrangement, and that she was working to get a new one.
She
also alleged that cybersquatters had acquired all her potential
domain names.
On
Tuesday, in a blog post, Ms. Ikeji accused “cybersquatters and
hackers” of trying to bring her blog down.
She
pointed a finger directly at Mukhtar Dan’Iyan, the Editor-in-Chief of
US-based 15Past8 Media Group, who uses the handle @AyeDee on
Twitter.
Ms. Ikeji said
Mr. Dan’Iyan was equally guilty of what he accused her of -lifting
articles from other websites without permission, and alleged that he owned the
domain name lindaikeji.net under an alias, Emmanuel Efremov.
In
an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday,
Mr. Dan’Iyan said he had emailed Ms. Ikeji repeatedly about
contents she lifted from his site before filing a formal DMCA complaint to
Google.
A
Digital Copyright Millenium Act, DMCA, is an avenue to report content
that you would like removed from Google’s services under applicable laws.
According
to Mr. Dan’Iyan, Ms. Ikeji had used over 10,000 copyrighted
pictures and stories over the past five years without the authorisation of the
copyright owners.
He
also said “Emmanuel Efremov” was one of the directors in his company.
“Emmanuel has never
tried to sell anything to Linda, nor has he ever demanded any sort of money
from her. In fact, I doubt he’s ever had any interaction with here even in
passing,” Mr. Dan’Iyan said.
On Friday, October 10, LIB carried a long read outlining the genesis of the whole issue. Read here.
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