PROTEST TO
REOPEN THE TERRÀVISTA
Official homepage: http://come.to/protesto


 

We counted on the support
of the E.F.F.* portuguese branch
*Electronic Frontier Foundation

Press Releases
available in:
english / português



WE WON!
This protest was, by any means, the largest and strongest attitude of the
portuguese online community until August 1998.
The Terràvista service is now managed by an independent organization!
957 supporters from 27 countries
joined this protest!

This page was created to gather the support of the international Internet community to protest for the closure of the Terràvista, last 29th of July.
The result? More than 25.000 portuguese homepages suddenly "erased" from the Web.

WHAT IS THE TERRÀVISTA? The Terràvista was created in 1997, by the portuguese government for the free web hosting of portuguese homepages (2MB each).

WHAT HAPPENED? This service was closed after the Minister of Culture, Manuel Maria Carrilho, found that there were some pornographic contents (DragonBall "softcore" scanned pictures) in *one* of the 25.000 homepages.

BACK TO THE CENSORSHIP! This Minister of the portuguese government stated at that time that all the homepages would be manually reviewed to delete improper contents. He also stated that new rules would be adopted to make every new submission (every file: texts, images, sounds, ...)be reviewed in order to block new improper materials.

OUR GOAL? To show the portuguese government and the international community that 25.000 webmasters are not responsible for the bad conduct and break of rules of one individual, and that no government has the right to close a Internet public service (like Terràvista) mantained with the money of the portuguese tax-payers.

WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME? In 7th of August, the Minister gave up on the service, passing its management to an independent newly created Terràvista Association.The protest began in the 30th of July 1998, and ended in 12nd of August. There was a strong media coverage on this protest and the public opinion realized how much damaged the portuguese Minister of Culture inflicted in the portuguese-speaking Internet. Terràvista was reopened on the 9th of August 1998.

This page had 4500 visitors during the protest.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ricardo Nuno Silva (), 28 years, was the webmaster of the portuguese Association of History Teachers, since October 1997. That homepage is hosted by Terràvista, and was unreachable for almost two weeks in August 1998 due to the portuguese government censorship. I'm no activist, but I truly believe that we must stand for our legitimate rights.



International Supporters | Press Releases: English / Português





Last update: 13rd August 1998
URL: http://come.to/protesto Backup URL: https://members.tripod.com/~Protesto_MC