Streisand effect

Streisand effect
The image of Barbra Streisand's house she tried, and so spectacularly failed to censor
The phenomenon of counterproductive efforts to remove material which is already online.

The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby attempts to carry out internet censorship are counterproductive - resulting in drawing more attention to the information.

Origins

The phrase was coined by Mike Masnick of Techdirt.<ref>Siegel, Robert (February 29, 2008). "The Streisand Effect' Snags Effort to Hide Documents". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. The episode is the latest example of a phenomenon known as the 'Streisand Effect.'

“How long is it going to take before lawyers realize that the simple act of trying to repress something they don't like online is likely to make it so that something that most people would never, ever see (like a photo of a urinal in some random beach resort) is now seen by many more people? Let's call it the Streisand Effect.”
Mike Masnick (5 January 2005) 

Selected example

In 1999, Richard Tomlinson sought to publish a list of 117 MI6 operatives on the internet. Rather than deny it, the UK Foreign Office sought to censor it. Duncan Campbell wrote a few days later: “[T]he British Government moved to silence the national media. Using the D-Notice system that Australia similarly enforced, Rear Admiral David Pulvertaft warned editors that "a US-based website has today published on the Internet a list which identifies a large number of SIS (MI6) officers. Departmental officers are examining how the damage of this disclosure can be minimised. While this is in progress, I would ask that editors do not interpret the information in the website as being widely disclosed and do not, therefore, publish the address or the content of the website". Duncan Campbell wrote a week later that "The folly of the decision sank home in London this weekend as officials watched the list from Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) spread across the world.”

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Date
"Let's Go Brandon!"	“the phrase and meme are fast becoming the most censored words of 2021, yet still entire stadiums of fans at sports games now regularly in unison shout Let's go Brandon ...even at high school or college games.”	20 December 2021

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:I've Been Banned From Facebook for Sharing an Article About False Flags	article	17 November 2017	Caitlin Johnstone	Caitlin Johnstone's account of her Facebook censorship experience.

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