The Streisand Effect
(Commentary by Jordan Low)
Censorship is becoming one of the
most loathed “dirty words” in the age of digital media. There are companies
that view censorship as a quick fix to negative press that might be
inconveniencing them. These companies believe that once they silence the source
of negative press, the problem will go away. However, they severely underestimate
the human hunger for information.
The Streisand Effect is the name
of one such phenomenon; whereby attempts to censor or hide information will
inadvertently draw far more attention to the issue, usually facilitated by the
internet.
Jonathan Becher explains that the
origin of the term stems from a lawsuit in 2003. Celebrity singer Barbra
Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman for including an aerial photograph
of her Malibu home. The photo was one of thousands he took of the California
coastline for researchers to use to study erosion. Streisand claimed that the photos
were a breach of privacy and attempted to remove them from circulation.
However, this backfired as the lawsuit brought in more far more attention than
it would had Streisand ignored circulation of the photos. The fact that she
lost the lawsuit made even more people aware of the photos.
Just recently, we saw a case of
the Streisand Effect take place in Penang. Minister for Islamic Affairs,
Mujahid Yusof Rawa, came under fire due to demanding the removal of two
portraits allegedly promoting the LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual)
community during the 2018 George Town Festival. The controversy exploded and
brought the LGBT community to the front of public attention in Malaysia,
completely defeating the purpose of the censorship attempt.
Another example would be the
jailing of artist Fahmi Reza for publishing a drawing of former Prime Minister
Najib Razak looking like a clown. Reza was arrested and fined for allegedly “breaching
laws that ban the spreading online of content that is deemed offensive”. This
censorship of free speech went viral which drew the attention of the public
towards the scandal-riddled former Prime Minister.
Additionally,
with how trigger happy online media distribution websites have been with
regards to censorship recently, it is no surprise to see so many independent
journalists and pundits calling out companies such as Youtube and Patreon for
censoring content that might hurt their partnership with sponsors. While
websites like Youtube might be able to persevere through some of the
controversy due to the sheer size of its user base, Patreon has begun showing
cracks; as some of their most profitable users have abandoned ship in protest
of the site’s censorship of certain users with who critisise the ‘far left’.
There is
a lesson to be learned here: The more one tries to hide the truth, the more
people will try to uncover it.
Becher’s
full commentary on the Streisand Effect can be found below.
________________________________________________________________________
The Streisand Effect Explains Why
Nothing Stays Hidden
A few weeks ago, I wrote about an
example of unintended consequences called the cobra effect in which an attempt
to reduce the snake population actually increased it. A reader emailed me
asking me if I had heard of a similar phenomenon called the Streisand effect.
Since I hadn’t, I thought I would share the concept with you:
The Streisand effect refers to an
attempt to censor a piece of information which has the unintended consequence
of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after a 2003 incident
in which Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman for including an
aerial photograph of her Malibu home among the 12,000 photos he took of the
California coastline for researchers to use to study erosion. According to the
court documents, only 6 people (including Streisand’s attorneys) had downloaded
the image before the lawsuit was filed. As a result of the publicity
surrounding the lawsuit, an estimated more than one million people viewed the
photograph. Streisand’s attempt to keep the photo hidden from people resulted
in more people seeing it. And one more thing: Streisand lost the lawsuit and
had to pay Adelman’s legal fees.
The Streisand effect underscores
much of our celebrity worship culture and the dramatic rise of citizen
paparazzi. If people find out that someone is trying to keep information from
them, they have increased motivation to uncover it. We are seemingly obsessed
about knowing things that others don’t want us to know.
The
marketer in me realizes this provides a reverse psychology opportunity: if I
want to spread something far and wide, I should pretend it’s a secret.
Sources:
Image Source: Ars Technica
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