Why did Lula start blogging?

Given how many politicians have managed to successfully navigate through the mazes of blogging and twittering, the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva  could have done a better job:    A new blog launched Monday by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became inaccessible within hours after aides sorely underestimated the number of ...

Given how many politicians have managed to successfully navigate through the mazes of blogging and twittering, the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva  could have done a better job:
 
 A new blog launched Monday by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became inaccessible within hours after aides sorely underestimated the number of Internet readers it would attract.

Given how many politicians have managed to successfully navigate through the mazes of blogging and twittering, the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva  could have done a better job:
 

 A new blog launched Monday by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became inaccessible within hours after aides sorely underestimated the number of Internet readers it would attract.

"We set up a structure so the blog could receive 6,000 simultaneous hits, but this forecast was greatly exceeded," an official in the president’s communication service told AFP.

"We’re currently improving the infrastructure," he said.

Well, at least they had the decency not to blame cyber-attacks. Is Lula turning to blogging to answer the growing list of unpleasant questions over his support for José Sarney, the disgraced president of Brazil’s Senate? The timing here, indeed, looks very suspicious: I bet his advisors think that letting people ask questions would be just one way to blow their steam off, given the brewing controversy surrounding Sarney.

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com

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