An apparent software error by Terra Lycos's Web hosting subsidiary, Tripod.com, shut down several anti-government sites in Malaysia this week and riled those who felt Tripod made the move purposely, under Malaysian government pressure.

More than a dozen Tripod-hosted Web sites critical of Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of the Southeast Asian nation, and supporting the country's political reformation were suddenly shut down over the weekend.

In a nation where free speech is tenuous at best -- and where the government this month shut down a site supporting jailed Mohamad political opponent Anwar Ibrahim and arrested its Web master -- this led both pro- and anti-government forces to assume that Mohamad was the "black hand" behind the move.

In fact, the pages were, along with hundreds of others, mistakenly taken off Tripod's U.S.-based servers when the company was removing other sites that had violated its terms of service.

Like other companies that allow people or organizations to set up personal home pages, Tripod regularly responds to user complaints if one of its sites breaks any of 38 conduct guidelines, such as sending spam or child pornography. If the guidelines are violated, Tripod can take down the site from its servers.

Over the weekend, while removing sites that had skirted the guidelines, Tripod's computer network mistakenly pulled down hundreds of sites not in violation. Among those pages were at least 14 sites that regularly provide information critical of Mohamad's government and calling for its reformation.

In a nation where the official media is licensed and under tight government control, the free-wheeling Web sites have taken on considerable importance as an information source. Their significance grew beginning in 1998, when Mohamad jailed his one-time finance minister Anwar on corruption charges.

Earlier this month, in what was apparently the Malaysian government's first move against a "reformasi" Web site, police arrested Raja Petra Kamaruddin, Web master of a popular Free Anwar Campaign site. He was charged with publishing seditious information, and police removed computers from his home.

In that context, the shutdown of the Tripod sites took on considerable significance. As noted by the news site Malaysiakini.com, Web masters of the reformasi sites, including Komentar, Debat 2020, Detik Daily and a youth justice league called Pemuda Keadilan, wrote a letter calling on Tripod not to buckle under government pressure.

On the other side, members of the youth wing of Mohamad's politcal party, the United Malays National Organization, praised Tripod for its firm action in curbing the sites for abusing free speech and publishing lies. "We urge other webhosting companies to be responsible like Tripod.com," an UMNO Youth spokesman said.

The most popular reformasi site, Laman Reformasi, which is also hosted by Tripod, was never pulled down. Over the weekend, when the cause of the shutdowns remained in doubt, it posted a notice saying the problem could be due to problems with Tripod servers, though it acknowledged the possibility of sabotage.

As of Wednesday morning at least some of the reformasi sites had resumed service and posted a link to a letter from Tripod apologizing for the service disruption.

In Western countries, outcries were heard from conspiracy theorists who thought Tripod was shutting down sites mentioning "fan fiction," a genre in which people write plots involving characters from movies or TV shows. The theorists speculated that Tripod was buckling under to media corporations concerned about copyright violations.

Tripod spokeswoman Dorianne Almann said neither fan fictionalists nor Malaysian government opponents had been in any way singled out. While unclear on the number of sites that had been inadvertently pulled down, she said all of them would be reinstated within the next day or two.