![Streisand Estate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Streisand_Estate.jpg)
Attempts to hide, remove, or censor information often have the
unintended consequence
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by Ameri ...
of increasing awareness of that information via the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
. This is called the Streisand effect. It is named after American singer and actress
Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...
, whose attempt to suppress the
California Coastal Records Project
The California Coastal Records Project, founded in 2002, documents the California coastline with aerial photos taken from a helicopter flying parallel to the shore. Their webpage provides access to these images. One photo was taken every 500 feet ...
's photograph of her cliff-top residence in
Malibu, California
Malibu ( ; es, Malibú; Chumash: ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate and its strip of the Malibu ...
, taken to document California
coastal erosion
Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...
, inadvertently drew greater attention to the photograph in 2003.
Attempts to suppress information are often made through
cease-and-desist letters, but instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity, as well as media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, which can be
mirrored
''Mirrored'' is the debut studio album by American experimental rock band Battles. It was released on May 14, 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on May 22, 2007 in the United States. ''Mirrored'' marked the first album in which the band incorporated ...
on the Internet or distributed on
file-sharing networks.
In addition, seeking or obtaining an
injunction
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...
to prohibit something from being
published
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
or remove something that is already published can lead to increased
publicity
In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization (company, charity, etc.). It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often (but not always) ...
of the published work.
The Streisand effect is an example of
psychological reactance
In psychology, reactance is an unpleasant motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when an individual feels that an agent is attempting to limit one's ...
, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, they are significantly more motivated to access and spread that information.
History and etymology
In 2003, American singer and actress
Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...
sued
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil acti ...
photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million for
violation of privacy
The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 19 ...
. The lawsuit sought to remove "Image 3850", an aerial photograph in which Streisand's mansion was visible, from the publicly available
California Coastal Records Project
The California Coastal Records Project, founded in 2002, documents the California coastline with aerial photos taken from a helicopter flying parallel to the shore. Their webpage provides access to these images. One photo was taken every 500 feet ...
of 12,000 California coastline photographs, documenting
coastal erosion
Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...
and intended to influence government policymakers.
The lawsuit was dismissed and Streisand was ordered to pay Adelman's $177,000 legal fees.
"Image 3850" had been downloaded only six times prior to Streisand's lawsuit; two of those being by Streisand's attorneys. Public awareness of the case led to more than 420,000 people visiting the site over the following month.
Two years later, Mike Masnick of Techdirt
Techdirt is an American Internet blog that reports on technology's legal challenges and related business and economic policy issues, in context of the digital revolution. It focuses on intellectual property, patent, information privacy and cop ...
named the effect after the Streisand incident when writing about Marco Beach Ocean Resort's takedown notice to urinal.net (a site dedicated to photographs of urinal
A urinal (, ) is a sanitary plumbing fixture for urination only. Urinals are often provided in public toilets for male users in Western countries (less so in Muslim countries). They are usually used in a standing position. Urinals can be with ...
s) over its use of the resort's name.
Knowledge in non-Western cultures
The phenomenon is well-known in Chinese culture, expressed by the "wishing to cover, more conspicuous" (, zh, hp=Yù gài mí zhāng). A similar expression appeared as early as the 4th century BC.
Examples
In politics and government
In November 2007, Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
blocked access to YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
and Dailymotion
Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. ...
after material was posted depicting Tunisian political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s. Activists and their supporters then started to link the location of then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ( ar, زين العابدين بن علي, translit=Zayn al-'Ābidīn bin 'Alī; 3 September 1936 – 19 September 2019), commonly known as Ben Ali ( ar, بن علي) or Ezzine ( ar, الزين), was a Tunisian politician ...
's palace on Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
to videos about civil liberties in general. ''The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
'' said this "turned a low-key human-rights story into a fashionable global campaign".
In May 2009, the Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i political party Yisrael Beiteinu
Yisrael Beiteinu ( he, יִשְׂרָאֵל בֵּיתֵנוּ, russian: Наш Дом Израиль, lit. ''Israel Our Home'') is a secularist, nationalist right-wing political party in Israel. The party's base was originally secular Russia ...
introduced a bill that would outlaw all commemorations of the exodus of Palestinians
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
following the Independence War, known as "Nakba
Clickable map of Mandatory Palestine with the depopulated locations during the 1947–1949 Palestine war.
The Nakba ( ar, النكبة, translit=an-Nakbah, lit=the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), also known as the Palestinian Ca ...
", with a three-year prison sentence for such acts of remembrance. The original bill did not pass, and the controversy surrounding it unintentionally promoted knowledge of the Nakba within Israeli society, an example of the Streisand effect.
The French intelligence agency DCRI's attempt to delete the French Wikipedia article about the military radio station of Pierre-sur-Haute
The Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station is a site used for French military communications. It has been used in the service of France since 1913. It is in the Sauvain and Job communes, with the boundary between the Rhône-Alpes and Auvergn ...
resulted in the restored article temporarily becoming the most-viewed page on the French Wikipedia
The French Wikipedia (french: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has article ...
.
A 2013 libel suit by Theodore Katsanevas
Theodore Katsanevas ( el, Θεόδωρος Κατσανέβας; 13 March 1947 – 8 May 2021) was a Greek academic and politician. He was a member of the Greek Parliament from 1989 to 2004 for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PA.SO.K). In May ...
against a Greek Wikipedia editor resulted in members of the project bringing the story to the attention of journalists.
In 2017, the government of South Africa stated their intention to ban the book '' The President's Keepers'', detailing corruption within the government of then-President Jacob Zuma
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan name Msholozi, and was a former anti-aparth ...
. This resulted in sales of the book skyrocketing dramatically, and it sold out within 24 hours before the ban was to be put into effect. This made the book a national best seller and led to multiple reprints.
In February 2018, Anne Applebaum
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe.
She has worked at ''The Econo ...
wrote in ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' about the Polish Holocaust law, which would have criminalized blaming Poles for the Holocaust. She argued that the Streisand effect would draw more attention to aspects of history that the Polish government preferred to suppress. The legislation is part of the historical policy of the Law and Justice party which seeks to present a narrative of ethnic Poles exclusively as victims and heroes.[Poland's Constitutional Breakdown]
Wojciech Sadurski
Wojciech Sadurski (born 5 June 1950) is a Polish and Australian scholar of constitutional law. As of 2020, he is Challis Professor in Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor in the Centre for Europe in the University of Warsaw.
A ...
, Oxford University Press, page 155 The law met with widespread international criticism, as it was seen as an infringement on freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
and on academic freedom
Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...
, and as a barrier to open discussion on Polish collaborationism, in what has been described as "the biggest diplomatic crisis in oland'srecent history".
A 2018 study of millions of individual responses of Chinese social media users found that sudden censorship of information by the Chinese government and its affiliates often led to mass backlashes, including newfound popularity of VPNs and the subsequent reviewing of entire topic lists on which censored subjects appear. Other researchers found that the backlash tended to result in permanent changes to political attitudes and behaviors.
A 2019 study of political imprisonment by the government of Saudi Arabia found that while the incarceration
Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". Imprisonment does not necessari ...
tended to deter individual dissidents from further dissent, it strongly emboldened their social media followers, led to a sharp increase in calls for political reform, and resulted in an increase in online dissent and physical in-person protests overall, including criticism of the ruling family and calls for regime change. Such repression draws public attention to the imprisoned dissidents and their causes, and did not deter other prominent figures in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
from continuing to dissent online.
In March 2019, US Representative (Calif.) Devin Nunes
Devin Gerald Nunes (; born October 1, 1973) is an American businessman and politician who is chief executive officer of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). Before resigning from the House of Representatives and joining TMTG, Nunes was ...
filed a defamation lawsuit
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
against Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
and three users for US$250 million in damages. One user named in the lawsuit, the parody account ''@DevinCow (Name: Devin Nunes' cow)'', had 1,200 followers before the lawsuit. After the suit, however, ''@DevinCow'' had gained some 600,000 additional followers.
In August 2020, it was reported that the Chinese government had blanked out parts of Baidu
Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
's mapping platform, and that this could be used to find a network of buildings bearing hallmarks of prisons and internment camps.
In October 2020, the ''New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established ...
'' published emails from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden
Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American attorney who is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife Neilia Hunter Biden. He is also a hedge fund, venture capital, and private-equity fund investor who for ...
, the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, detailing an alleged corruption scheme. Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
blocked the story from their platform and locked the accounts of those who shared a link to the article, including the ''New York Post'' own Twitter account, and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
Kayleigh McEnany (; born April 18, 1988) is an American conservative political commentator and author who served the administration of Donald Trump as the 33rd White House press secretary from April 2020 to January 2021.
Early in the 2016 Re ...
, among others. Researchers at MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
cited the increase of 5.5 thousand shares every 15 minutes to about 10 thousand shares shortly after Twitter censored the story, as evidence of the Streisand Effect nearly doubling the attention the story received.
In March 2022, incumbent Australian federal MP Tim Wilson, in what had previously been considered to be the safe seat
A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combinat ...
of Goldstein, drew national attention to his independent challenger Zoe Daniel
Zoe Daniel is an Australian journalist, politician, columnist and broadcaster. She is the independent member of parliament for the Division of Goldstein following the 2022 Australian federal election, having defeated the incumbent Liberal Par ...
when he made legal objections to posting of campaign signs by volunteers on the fences of private residences. This also led to a significant increase in donations to the Daniel Campaign.
On 3 June 2022, Chinese streamer Li Jiaqi was interrupted for showing a tank-shaped ice cream in the livestream and failed to show up for the next scheduled show. This sudden suspension drew more attention to the sensitivity of the tank symbol, alluding to 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
.
On 18 June 2022, ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' reported claims that Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
had tried to hire his now-wife Carrie Symonds
Caroline Louise Beavan Johnson (' Symonds; born 17 March 1988) is a British media consultant and the wife of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson. She is the daughter of Matthew Symonds, co-founder of ''The Independent.''
...
as his chief of staff when he was foreign secretary
The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...
. Although it was published on its first printed edition, it was then swiftly removed without explanation. It was also mentioned on ''MailOnline
MailOnline (also known as ''dailymail.co.uk'') is the website of the '' Daily Mail'', a newspaper in the United Kingdom, and of its sister paper '' The Mail on Sunday''. MailOnline is a division of dmg media, which is owned by Daily Mail and ...
'', who rewrote the Times' story in the early hours of the morning before also deleting its article without explanation or an editor's note. News aggregation site ''MSN News'' also deleted their copies of the MailOnline article. Rival newspaper, ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' mentioned that this incident could backfire as an example of the Streisand effect. A few days later on the 21 June, 10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...
said that the prime minister's special advisers asked The Times to retract the article, leading to questions about the objectivity about the editorship of the newspaper.
By businesses
In April 2007, a group of companies that used Advanced Access Content System (AACS) encryption issued cease-and-desist letters demanding that the system's 128-bit (16-byte) numerical key (represented in hexadecimal
In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, hexa ...
as ) be removed from several high-profile websites, including Digg
Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launch ...
. With the numerical key and some software, it was possible to decrypt the video content on HD-DVDs. This led to the key's proliferation across other sites and chat rooms in various formats, with one commentator describing it as having become "the most famous number on the Internet". Within a month, the key had been reprinted on over 280,000 pages, had been printed on T-shirts and tattoos, had been published as a book, and had appeared on YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
in a song played over 45,000 times.
In September 2009, multi-national oil company Trafigura
Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean-based Swiss multinational commodity trading company founded in 1993 that trades in base metals and energy. It is the world's largest private metals trader and second-largest oil trader having built or p ...
obtained a super-injunction to prevent ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper from reporting on an internal Trafigura investigation into the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump scandal. A super-injunction prevents reporting on even the existence of the injunction. Using parliamentary privilege
Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties. ...
, Labour MP Paul Farrelly
Christopher Paul Farrelly (born 2 March 1962) is a British Labour Party politician, banker and journalist, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 2001 to 2019.
Early life
Farrelly was born in Newcastle-under-Lym ...
referred to the super-injunction in a parliamentary question, and on October 12, 2009, ''The Guardian'' reported that it had been gagged from reporting on the parliamentary question, in violation of the 1689 Bill of Rights. Blogger Richard Wilson correctly identified the blocked question as referring to the Trafigura waste dump scandal, after which ''The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' suggested the same. Not long after, Trafigura began trending on Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, helped along by Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...
's retweeting the story to his followers. Twitter users soon tracked down all details of the case, and by October 16, the super-injunction had been lifted and the report published.
In November 2012, Casey Movers, a Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
moving company, threatened to sue a woman in Hingham District Court for libel in response to a negative Yelp
Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Fra ...
review. The woman's husband wrote a blog post about the situation, which was then picked up by ''Techdirt'' and ''Consumerist
''Consumerist'' (also known as ''The Consumerist'') was a non-profit consumer affairs website owned by Consumer Media LLC, a subsidiary of '' Consumer Reports'', with content created by a team of full-time reporters and editors. The site's foc ...
''. By the end of the week, the company was reviewed by the Better Business Bureau
Better Business Bureau (BBB) is a private, 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization founded in 1912. BBB's self-described mission is to focus on advancing marketplace trust, consisting of 97 independently incorporated local BBB organizations in the Unit ...
, which later revoked its accreditation.
In December 2013, YouTube user ghostlyrich uploaded video proof that his Samsung Galaxy S4
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...
battery had spontaneously caught fire. Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
had demanded proof before honoring its warranty. Once Samsung learned of the YouTube video, it added additional conditions to its warranty, demanding ghostlyrich delete his YouTube video, promise not to upload similar material, officially absolve the company of all liability, waive his right to bring a lawsuit, and never make the terms of the agreement public. Samsung also demanded that a witness cosign the settlement proposal. When ghostlyrich shared Samsung's settlement proposal
The 1978 Settlement Proposal in Namibia, devised by the Contact Group of Western States, mandated the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) under United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 to assist a UN Special Representative app ...
online, his original video drew 1.2 million views in one week.
In August 2014, it was reported that Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York
Hudson is a city and the county seat of Columbia County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 5,894. Located on the east side of the Hudson River and 120 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it was named for the rive ...
, had a policy that "there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH nion Street Guest Houseplaced on any Internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event." The policy had been used in an attempt to suppress an unfavorable November 2013 Yelp review. Thousands of negative reviews of the policy were posted to Yelp and other review sites.
In September 2018, ''The Verge'', an American technology news and media network operated by Vox Media
Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company based in Washington, D.C., and New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''SB Nation'' (a sports blog network founded in 2005 by ...
, published an article titled "How to Build a Custom PC for Editing, Gaming or Coding" and uploaded a video to YouTube titled "How we Built a $2000 Custom Gaming PC", which was widely criticized for its instructions that would have been harmful or dangerous to both the computer and user if followed, and its numerous factual errors, such as claiming anti-vibration pads were for electrical insulation
An electrical insulator is a material in which electric current does not flow freely. The atoms of the insulator have tightly bound electrons which cannot readily move. Other materials—semiconductors and conductors—conduct electric curren ...
, and confusing zip tie
A cable tie (also known as a hose tie, zip tie, or tie wrap) is a type of fastener for holding items together, primarily electrical cables and wires. Because of their low cost, ease of use, and binding strength, cable ties are ubiquitous, findi ...
s with tweezers
Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most likely derived from tongs used to grab or hold hot objects since the dawn of recorded history. ...
. In February 2019, Vox Media started issuing DMCA takedown notices to YouTube channels which posted content using clips from the video, most notably to technology channels Bitwit and ReviewTechUSA, bringing further attention to the video and the related content they attempted to suppress. After an outcry following the decision, YouTube reinstated these two videos, along with retracting the copyright "strikes" applied.
On 20 February 2020, Apple filed a legal complaint against the sales of the German-language book ''App Store Confidential'', written by a former German App Store manager, Tom Sadowski. Apple cited confidential business information as the reason for requesting the sales ban. However, the publicity brought on by the media caused the book to reach number two on the Amazon bestseller list in Germany. The book was soon on its second print run.
In October 2020, the RIAA filed a DMCA takedown against the youtube-dl
youtube-dl is a free and open source download manager for video and audio from YouTube and over 1,000 other video hosting websites. It is released under the Unlicense software license.
As of September 2021, youtube-dl is one of the most starred ...
repository on GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
, resulting in the repository and several forks being taken down. However, over 100 forks of the original repository appeared on GitHub in the days following the takedown request.
By other organizations
In January 2008, The Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, bu ...
's attempts to get Internet websites to delete a video of Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962), known professionally as Tom Cruise, is an American actor and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actors, he has received various accolades, including an Honorary Palme d'Or and three Gol ...
speaking about Scientology
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data indi ...
resulted in the creation of Project Chanology
Project Chanology (also called Operation Chanology) was a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group. "Chanology" is a combination of "4chan" and "Scientology". ...
.
On December 5, 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a registered charity based in Cambridge, England. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content, specifically child sexual abuse images and videos hosted anywhe ...
(IWF) added the English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of
, has the most arti ...
article about the 1976 Scorpions
Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always end ...
album '' Virgin Killer'' to a child pornography blacklist, considering the album's cover art "a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18". The article quickly became one of the most popular pages on the site, and the publicity surrounding the IWF action resulted in the image being spread across other sites. The IWF was later reported on the BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
website to have said "IWF's overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the Internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect". This effect was also noted by the IWF in its statement about the removal of the URL from the blacklist.
In June 2012, Argyll and Bute Council
Argyll and Bute ( sco, Argyll an Buit; gd, Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bòd, ) is one of 32 unitary authority council areas of Scotland, council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant fo ...
in Scotland banned a nine-year-old primary school pupil from updating her blog, NeverSeconds
NeverSeconds is a blog created and run by Scottish schoolgirl Martha Payne in 2012. On it, she expressed her thoughts and experiences of eating school meals at her primary school in Lochgilphead. The blog received a great deal of public attentio ...
, with photos of lunchtime meals served in the school's canteen. The blog, which was already popular, started receiving a large number of views due to the international media furor that followed the ban. Within days, the council reversed its decision under immense public pressure and scrutiny. After the reversal of the ban, the blog became more popular than it was before.
In September 2022, after an upset loss to Appalachian State clips of Texas A&M's Midnight Yell Practice
Midnight Yell Practice, known locally as Midnight Yell or Yell Practice, is a tradition at Texas A&M University. Midnight Yell is similar to a pep rally. On the night before each home football game, Midnight Yell takes place in Kyle Field at mi ...
started trending on the internet, the clips featured quotes including "What's are the best 4 years of an Appalachian State Mountaineers life? The third grade!" along with "I know for a fact that half their football team can barely read the name of their jerseys, let alone, read a map" Texas A&M filed several DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...
strikes on several platforms of the clips online, however with the clips being continually taken down and reuploaded, the clips became even more popular.
By individuals
In May 2011, Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
footballer Ryan Giggs
Ryan Joseph Giggs (né Wilson; 29 November 1973) is a Welsh association football, football coach and former player. Regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Giggs played his List of one-club men in association football, entir ...
sued Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
after a user revealed that Giggs was the subject of an anonymous privacy injunction (informally referred to as a "super-injunction") that prevented the publication of details regarding an alleged affair with model and former '' Big Brother'' contestant Imogen Thomas
Imogen Mary Thomas (born 29 November 1982) is a Welsh model and television personality. She won the Miss Wales award in 2003, and appeared on the seventh series of Channel 4 reality television programme '' Big Brother'' in 2006. In 2011, her a ...
. A blogger for the ''Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' website observed that the British media, which were banned from breaking the terms of the injunction, had mocked the footballer for not understanding the effect. Dan Sabbagh from ''The Guardian'' subsequently posted a graph detailing—without naming the player—the number of references to the player's name against time, showing a large spike following the news that the player was seeking legal action.
Similar situations involving super-injunctions in England and Wales have occurred, one involving Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in Driving, motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes ''Top Gear (2002 TV series), Top Gear'' an ...
. Since January 2016 a celebrity (later revealed outside England and Wales to be David Furnish
David James Furnish (born 25 October 1962) is a Canadian filmmaker and former advertising executive. He is married to English singer, pianist and composer Sir Elton John.
Early life and education
David Furnish was born in Toronto, Ontario, the ...
) used the injunction granted in ''PJS v News Group Newspapers
''PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd'' 016UKSC 26 is a UK constitutional law case in which an anonymised privacy injunctionThe injunction has been incorrectly referred to as a "super-injunction" in some media reports. Super-injunctions prohibit pub ...
'' to prevent media in England and Wales reporting events that have been featured in Scottish media and on the Internet.
In 2018, Philippine Senate
The Senate of the Philippines (Filipino language, Filipino: ''Senado ng Pilipinas'', also ''Mataas na Kapulungan ng Pilipinas'' or "upper chamber") is the upper house of Congress of the Philippines, Congress of the bicameral legislature of the ...
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Tito Sotto
Vicente Castelo Sotto III (; born August 24, 1948), professionally known as Tito Sotto, is a Filipino politician, entertainer and athlete who served as Senate President from 2018 to 2022. Before that, had two stints each as Senate Majority Lea ...
requested the ''Philippine Daily Inquirer
The ''Philippine Daily Inquirer'' (''PDI''), or simply the ''Inquirer'', is an English-language newspaper in the Philippines. Founded in 1985, it is often regarded as the Philippines' newspaper of record. The newspaper is the most awarded bro ...
'' to take down three of its online news articles published in 2014 that reported on the gang rape case of 15-year-old actress Pepsi Paloma
Delia Dueñas Smith (July 17, 1966 – May 31, 1985), better known as Pepsi Paloma, was a Filipino-American dancer and actress in the Philippines. She was one of the popular Softdrinks Beauties introduced in the 1980s along with Sarsi Emmanuell ...
in 1982. The articles stated that Sotto had intimidated Paloma to drop the case and used his political connections to influence the outcome of the rape case, of which his brother Vic Sotto
Marvic Valentin Castelo Sotto (; born April 28, 1954), professionally known as Vic Sotto, is a Filipino actor, singer and comedian known far and wide for his various television and film projects on the major Philippine television networks GMA ...
was among the suspects involved. Tito Sotto alleged in his letter to the ''Inquirer'' that the articles "maliciously linked" him to the rape case and "negatively affected" his reputation "for the longest time". In response, links to the articles were mass-shared and archived into posts on Facebook and Twitter to preserve them and sparked renewed public interest into the Pepsi Paloma rape case. Eventually, a month after the request was made, the ''Inquirer'' complied with Sotto's request, with links to the former articles now redirecting to the Inquirer's home page.
A satirical play, ''Two Brothers and the Lions'', was written by French playwright Hédi Tillette de Clermont-Tonnerre, about two wealthy British people who live in a castle on the Channel Island
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...
of Brecqhou
Brecqhou (or Brechou; ) is one of the Channel Islands, located off the west coast of Sark where they are now geographically detached from each other. Brecqhou is politically part of both Sark and the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It has been establishe ...
, "who become cold, selfish monsters in the heart of our democratic societies". In reality the billionaire Barclay brothers
Sir David Rowat Barclay (27 October 1934 – 10 January 2021) and Sir Frederick Hugh Barclay (born 27 October 1934), commonly referred to as the "Barclay Brothers" or "Barclay Twins", were British billionaires. They were identical twin brothers ...
, owners of the ''Daily Telegraph
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' newspaper amongst other holdings, live in a castle on the island. David Barclay sued the playwright in France for defamation and invasion of privacy, though the Barclays were not named in the play. The playwright's lawyer described the play as "a satirical fable on capitalism". Tillette de Clermont-Tonnerre acknowledged that the play was partly inspired by the lives of the brothers. But he said it fell within his right to freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
, and said the play had been commissioned to explore the issue of the continued existence of mediaeval Norman law Norman law (, , ) refers to the customary law of the Duchy of Normandy which developed between the 10th and 13th centuries and which survives today in the legal systems of Jersey and the other Channel Islands. It grew out of a mingling of Frankish ...
in the Channel Islands, while ruminating on the nature and future of capitalism. In July 2019 Barclay lost the case. The play had been obscure and only played in small theatres, though critically acclaimed; after the lawsuit performances were scheduled in cities across France.
Luke O'Neill, an Irish immunologist writing in ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', opined that Bret Stephens
Bret Louis Stephens (born November 21, 1973) is an American conservative journalist, editor, and columnist. He began working as an opinion columnist for ''The New York Times'' in April 2017 and as a senior contributor to NBC News in June 2017.
...
, an American Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
winning journalist, in 2019 achieved "as close to the perfect Streisand effect as one could imagine" by writing an email to David Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs, whose tweet calling Stephens a "bedbug" had attracted insignificant interest, saying "I'm often amazed about the things supposedly decent people are prepared to say about other people — people they've never met — on Twitter. I think you've set a new standard."; Stephens cc'd on the email the provost of George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, preside ...
at which Karpf worked. Karpf retaliated against Stephens, by posting the email publicly on Twitter, and by writing an op-ed criticizing Stephens in the ''Los Angeles Times''. Stephens was mocked on Twitter, deleted his Twitter account, and the story was picked up by media.
The Streisand effect has been observed in relation to the right to be forgotten
The right to be forgotten (RTBF) is the right to have private information about a person be removed from Internet searches and other directories under some circumstances. The concept has been discussed and put into practice in several jurisdiction ...
, the right in some jurisdictions to have private information about a person removed from internet searches and other directories under some circumstances, as a litigant
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
attempting to remove information from search engines risks the litigation itself being reported as valid, current news.
In 2019 author Andrew Seidel sent a copy of his book '' The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American'' to conservative evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
pastor Greg Locke in the hope of starting a conversation about the issues discussed in it. Locke said that he had no intention of reading the book, and burnt it, posting video of the burning on his social media accounts. Response to the video included many replies expressing the intention to purchase and read the book, and to donate copies to libraries.
In November 2022, TV host Pablo Motos
Pablo Motos Burgos (born August 31, 1965) is a Spanish comedian and broadcaster who is best known for producing and presenting ''El Hormiguero'', a popular Spanish television show.
Biography
He was the son of Amelia Burgos, who died on 11 Decemb ...
took an offence in the wake of a Spanish Ministry of Equality TV promo that used an actor to play a male TV host asking a female guest about the kind of clothing he wore to sleep (echoing a similar situation involving Motos and actress Elsa Pataky
Elsa Lafuente Medianu (; born 18 July 1976), known professionally as Elsa Pataky, is a Spanish-Australian model and actress. Pataky is known for her role as Elena Neves in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. She has appeared in the films '' Snake ...
in ''El Hormiguero
''El Hormiguero'' (, Spanish for "The Anthill") is a Spanish television program with a live audience focusing on comedy, science, and guest interviews running since September 2006. It is hosted and produced by screenwriter Pablo Motos. The show ...
''), in order to denounce sexist attitudes women face on a daily basis. Motos invested 10 minutes of his show to criticise the promo and to tell audience that he is not ''machista
Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1930s and 1940s best defined as hav ...
'' (thus promoting in prime time an ad that presumably would have gone relatively unnoticed otherwise), Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
users share videos highlighting sexist attitudes by Motos in his show, Motos reportedly tries to take them down via copyright infringement notices from his production company, and they become viral.
In December 2022, Twitter CEO Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...
banned the Twitter account @elonjet, a bot that reported his private jet's movements based on public domain flight data. Musk had cited concerns about his personal safety, however this led to further media coverage and public attention to Musk’s apparently contradictory comments on allowing free speech across the Twitter platform. Musk received further criticism after banning several journalists that had referred to the "ElonJet" account or been critical of Musk in the past.
See also
*
*
* (popularly known as a "D notice")
*
*
*
**
**
*
* ("Cobra effect")
*
*
* ''Royal Family'' (film)
*
*
* Super-injunctions
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in par ...
In England and Wales, injunctions whose existence and details may not be legally reported, in addition to facts or allegations which may not be disclosed
References
External links
"The perils of the Streisand effect"
Parkinson, Justin. BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
, July 31, 2014.
{{Barbra Streisand
2003 in California
2005 neologisms
Adages
Barbra Streisand
Eponyms
Historical negationism
Internet censorship in the United States
Internet culture
Privacy controversies and disputes