The Whistler Nigeria, a news website, says it will take legal action against Christ Embassy’s Parallex Bank, for taking down its platform for hours over a publication about the bank.
The shutting down of the website according to The Whistler Nigeria, is an assault on freedom of the press.
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According to the news medium, it published a report of the launch of the bank titled “Christ Embassy Launches ‘Free’ Commercial Bank” using information provided on the bank’s own website on January 17.
The medium reported that the bank would provide some interest-free services including “5 Free Interbank Transfers Daily” and zero maintenance fees on all accounts, citing details provided by the bank.
The report immediately went viral.
“Apparently not expecting it would so quickly come into public scrutiny, the bank decided to hire a cyber-security firm—iZOOlogic– based in the United Kingdom, which wrote THE WHISTLER to step down the report.
“When this did not yield the desired result, the firm went through our website’s hosting company to report a copyright infringement alleging that THE WHISTLER published a content it “did not authorize.”
“The host, acting on the wrong information provided by Parallex bank, took down the website for about four hours.
“After being notified about the false allegation, THE WHISTLER explained that there was no copyright violation since the information used in the report was publicly available on the bank’s own website.
“The clarification led to the restoration of the newspaper’s website.
“Parallex bank’s action was no doubt an assault on media freedom and THE WHISTLER is prepared to seek redress in court for the damages caused,” the medium stated.
