The case of Azeri bloggers Andnan Hajizade and Emin Milli is getting more traction in the international press, with a new BBC report spotlighting the plight of the "Donkey Bloggers." (Really? That's the brand we're going to hang on these guys?)
Either way, the BBC gets Elsa Vidal over at RSF (Reporters Without Borders) to jawbone on the state of press freedom in Azerbaijan, calling it "one of the black spots of the former USSR."
Meanwhile, fellow blogger Erkin Karirli points out that the treatment of Hajizade and Milli has backfired. "Before the arrest, only a few hundred people had seen the video. Since the arrest, the video has been seen by thousands and the number continues to grow.”
True, the humor isn't very sharp for non-Azeri audiences. But then again, we’re biased. The donkey is a brave and noble beast.
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The story has finally gotten enough traction that it's reached Comedy Central's "Daily Show" Indecision blog: http://bit.ly/mggS6 via another site called Boing Boing. And a commenter on that site refers to something called "The Streisand effect" (entry in Wikipedia).
"The Streisand effect is an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized."
Over 17,000 views of the donkey video so far...
25,708 views at the time of this comment...
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