I refer to the termination of service suffered by at least 11 websites run by opposition groups in Malaysia. As I read all the comments pouring in by various parties, especially the owners of the websites, I noticed that a transformation was happening before my very eyes: the voices of opposition are very much beginning to sound like the lamenting voices we've heard from the government these past few years. Please note the following:

"We urge you to contact the webmasters directly and ascertain for yourselves the truth of any allegations made by the Malaysian ruling party or its supporters against the reformasi websites," said Lokman.

Essentially, Keadilan Youth secretary Lokman Noor Adam is laying blame on the closure of the websites on the Malaysian government. In an official letter, a letter that has now been printed in part by the press (i.e., malaysiakini) he openly accuses Dr Mahathir Mohamad and company of conspiring to shut down these sites. Without proof, without substantiation, without any sort of indication that there is any truth in what he's saying, the blame of the website's shutting down is now the fault of the Malaysian government.

This is simply not fair.

Opposition leaders regularly fault the government for doing things without proof, such as locking up people without trial. True, the government does do things, does say things that are unsubstantiated and even when reasons are given, they are often illogical. But it seems to me based on this whole incident with Tripod, that the opposition leaders are a bunch of hypocrites - they are doing the very same thing that they blame the ruling government of doing.

Not to sound like a cynic, but if this is the case, then the saying that all politicians are the same, may be true after all. If, one day, we see Lokman and company come to power, who is to say that they won't just be replacements for what we have now. His letter to Tripod, dripping with hypocrisy, does tend to suggest that there may be very little difference indeed.

Allow me to give you another possible scenario about what has happened at Tripod, a more objective view, so to speak.

Firstly, if anyone were to bother to check out the site at www.tripod.com, he would soon discover that many sites were down, even sites that are in 'Featured' sections. The sites that qualify for the 'Featured' sections are normally the most popular that Tripod host, or sometimes with the most interesting content. Since they were down too, it suggested a wide-ranging systems failure at the Tripod servers.

So it is just a coincidence that the reformasi sites have had the bad luck to be hosted on the particular servers that are having problems. Nothing malicious here - it happens all the time, especially to 'free' servers such as Tripod.

The only way to avoid this problem will be for the webmasters of the affected sites to find a more reliable host, preferably one that is not deemed a 'free' service as they tend to be much more reliable. Contrary to public belief, it doesn't cost much for these servers, just about US$10-15 a month. If the webmasters were truly dedicated, then the RM60+ or so a month shouldn't deter them from getting better hosts.

Secondly, I believe malaysiakini is a little bit guilty of misrepresenting the facts. Malaysiakini reports that the message a user would see when he wanted to access one of the reformasi sites is one that reads: "...the services were terminated on the grounds of violations of the terms of service between the webmasters and Tripod".

This is misleading because that's only one-third of the message that is being displayed. The whole message reads: "Sorry, but the page or file that you're looking for is not here. Why? You may have spelled the URL incorrectly. Please check your spelling. The site may have been removed due to a violation of Tripod's terms of service. The site may have been moved to a different URL."

Anyone who's been using Tripod will know that this is the normal message displayed when the servers are down. Nothing malicious here either and I say shame to those who have tried to make it out to be the fault of the Malaysian government, who may be guilty of other wrongdoings, but not this one.

Thirdly, please refer to the following taken from the Tripod terms of service, an agreement that all members of the service have to adhere to when using Tripod's 'free' service:

"Upload, post, email, otherwise transmit, or post links to any content, or select any member or user name or email address, that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, libelous, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, sexually, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.

"Upload, post, email, otherwise transmit, or post links to any content that promotes illegal activity, including without limitation the provision of instructions for illegal activity.

"Intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, including, but not limited to, regulations promulgated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, any rules of any national or other securities exchange, including, without limitation, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq, and any regulations having the force of law."

The three clauses appear under the Prohibited Content section of the Terms of Service.

The first one means that a site cannot have, in its name itself a meaning that is "harmful, threatening, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable". With names such as "Mahafiraun", I can see how some of the sites are "objectionable" in name.

The second and the third are linked. The first says that the site cannot promote any illegal activity. And the second defines illegal activity as anything that "intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law" meaning that the laws of Malaysia apply to any website owned by a member of Tripod who is Malaysian. And, I think we all know that it's very easy to violate Malaysian laws - sometimes, even telling the truth violates the law.

So, all in all, the shutting down of the reformasi sites shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It could be completely unmalicious because 'free' servers are notorious for breaking down, more so one which is as popular (thus has to handle a heavy load) as Tripod.

And even if it was malicious, I think the only thing we should be surprised about is that it took so long for the sites to be shut down. Clearly, they violated at least three clauses in the Terms of Service that also clearly state that any violation of its rules will lead to a member's account being terminated.

Throughout this incident, I believe the real losers have been all those who automatically place the blame on the government when anything goes wrong. They have shown their true colours as hypocrites at the core and one wonders how Malaysia will be like if they take over one day.

And lastly, a word of advice to all those website operators who have lost their sites: Save yourself a lot of grief and abandon 'free' web hosting services. You're fighting for a cause, a cause that you have a right to fight for; it should be worth more to you than the measly RM60 you have to pay a month get a more reliable service provider.