Streisand Effect: Difference between revisions
m
no edit summary
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (replace second link to image from TVT, copyedits) |
mNo edit summary |
||
Line 11:
This has come to be known as the '''Streisand Effect''' — blogger Mike Masnick of Techdirt coined the phrase in response to the [[Trope Namer]], [[Barbra Streisand]], whose attempt to sue a photographer for taking [[media:Streisand Estate.jpg|a picture of her house]] and have the photo taken down from his website led to more people learning about the existence of the photo and quickly mirroring it on multiple websites as a [[Take That]] to Streisand. It should be noted that this wasn't some paparazzo taking pictures specifically of her house; rather, it was part of the California Costal Records Project, a government-commissioned photographic study of the entire California coast.
This is traditionally an Internet-based trope, since the spread of information is much faster and easier across the 'Net than through other means. A frequent vehicle for this is using false DMCA notices to take down criticism and commentary. This practice is actually explicitly a felony, but it is very much subject to [[Selective Enforcement]] (if even that). Use of the DMCA to shut down leaks can be lawful but it has the fatal flaw of requiring a company admit the leaked material is real, and owned by them (falsely claiming to own a work ''is'' taken seriously by the legal system). Since leaks not backed by extended quality video recording, or full release of product are met with serious skepticism and forgotten about quickly, this admission just tells people the leak is worth spreading.
Psychologists have done studies and found that the subjects' desire for any kind of potentially censorable material increased when the subjects were told that it was censored — the old [[Forbidden Fruit]] principle in action, in other words. Perhaps any authority considering the use of censorship should worry that this move might be counterproductive if it just gets people interested in the censored material.
| |||