14 DAY TRIAL // Newsnet Scotland, a news website critical of Scottish Unionist parties, has been offline for twelve hours following what its administration believes was a politically motivated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
The website went down at 12:55 pm on Monday and the web team immediately began working its Danish hosting provider to bring it back online.
The hosting company said the downtime was caused by an unprecedented level of activity that lasted until 12:40 am on Tuesday, when partial access was restored.
"Although we cannot as yet be 100% certain that we have been victims of a deliberate and co-ordinated DOS Attack aiming to silence us, we strongly believe it to be the most plausible explanation. The questions which we cannot definitively answer as yet are who, and why," the Newsnet Scotland publishers say.
They fear the attacks were politically motivated and were the result of the site's anti-Unionist views expressed during the election campaign going on in the country.
"If our fears are proven, it is a worrying development. Although we are occasionally ascerbic and strong in our criticisms of Unionist parties, Newsnet has always operated strictly legitimately and above board.
"We play by the rules. But it seems that perhaps certain groups or individuals do not like what we have to say, and do not want ordinary Scottish people to hear it," the site's administrators write.
They go on to challenge the objectivity of the country's primary media organizations, which they accuse of being controlled by Unionists and expressing distorted views.
"We will continue the struggle to bring a truly free media to a truly free Scotland, whatever obstacles some may put in our way. Newsnet will not be silenced," they stress.
On May 5, Scottish citizens will vote for seats the country's Parliament, as well as a UK referendum regarding the future voting system for Westminster Palace.