East London, 27 October 2021 — The Internet Service Provider Association (ISPA) has again confirmed today (27 October) that the NSPCA’s website was indeed suspended by South African hosting firm Xneelo yesterday (26 October) following an ISPA take-down notice. Following this, the NSPCA brazenly elected to evade the authority of South Africa’s Internet industry body with speed and stealth by moving its website outside ISPA’s area of jurisdiction.
Xneelo confirmed with ISPA today (27 October) that it enforced a website suspension on 26 October, but that the NSPCA moved the hosting of its website from South African servers to an offshore location resulting in the reinstatement of their website by the new web hosting company. The new web hosting company is not a South African business entity, not a member of ISPA and therefore not subject to ISPA’s authority.
“NSPCA elected to circumvent a legitimate sanction enforced by our country’s Internet body after being implicated in defamatory and misleading website content. It is our opinion that this course of action is equivalent in seriousness to a renegade running from authorities. Instead of facing the music over the embellishments, lies and misinformation about live exports, the NSPCA relocated its website off-shore,” said Al Mawashi SA spokesperson JP Roodt.
“We remain concerned over the fact that NSPCA failed to defend its content that was deemed defamatory, misleading and outside the parameters of acceptable usage policy as prescribed by the country’s apex Internet authority and one of its members, Xneelo. This, once more, brings NSPCA’s credibility into the balancing scale, in our opinion.”
“While NSPCA noted in correspondence to Xneelo it intended to approach the High Court, it failed to do so. It is our opinion that NSPCA knew very well that the Court would also ask for evidence to prove that its website content was not a material misrepresentation for the Court to provide relief from an ISPA website take-down notice. Instead, NSPCA took its website and ran away to evade ISPA’s jurisdiction.
“The Xneelo suspension of NSPCA’s website is an important victory for Al Mawashi SA and for stakeholders in live exports. The NSPCA actions to move its website away from the reach of the country’s authorities speak louder than words. NSPCA was caught red handed with its website of disinformation on live exports,” said Roodt.
However, this is not the end of the road.
“The NSPCA website is now located on a Google web hosting site. Google offers platforms to report abuse. We will still advocate for the NSPCA’s website to be served with an enforcement notice to remove select misleading and defamatory content on SA live exports. The NSPCA should do the responsible thing, and stop misinforming the South Africa public about live exports on their website.”
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Issued on behalf of Al Mawashi SA by Meropa Communications
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