Theory: The Streisand Effect

Written by Mary on April 22, 2008 – 2:16 pm -

The Streisand Effect refers to instances when Internet censorship has the opposite effect, actually increasing distribution and awareness of the censored material.

Origin of the Term: In 2003 singer Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for $50 million dollars to force them to remove a picture of her home (see above) from a series of 12,000 pictures of the California coast taken to study the effects of beach erosion. As a result of this peculiar law suit, the picture of her home was disseminated on the Internet and many more people saw it than would have if she had not tried to censor the image.

Application for Activists: How can activists apply the Streisand Effect as a means of countering Internet censorship? The key to the Streisand Effect is distributing the censored material and publicizing the instance of censorship. Without these two elements - distribution and publicity - censored material will not be viewed by a wide enough audience to counteract the original effect of the censorship. The end goal is to show your government that censoring content has the reverse effect, and thus discourage your government from censoring

From a technical perspective, the best way to distribute censored content is by e-mail, though feeds can also be used, as in the case of Amnesty International’s Irrepressible campaign, which allows bloggers to publish a feed of censored blog content on their own blog.

If e-mail is your means of distributing censored content, I recommend that you not simply attempt to send the content to as many people as possible, as in a chain letter, but rather find bloggers who are not censored who are willing to post the censored image or text so that it can be seen by a broader audience.

Now you have distributed the censored content so it is available to the public. However, the public is still not aware of it. Use all the means at your disposal - popular blogs, press releases to the mainstream media, messages to listservs and Facebook groups - in order to encourage people to view the censored content. The end goal is to show your government that censoring content has the reverse effect, and thus discourage governments from censoring, so the more people that see and post the content, the better.

original photo credit: Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com

hat-tip: Enturbulation.org, Wikipedia


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Posted in Americas, Blogs, Digital Images, Listservs, Social Networks, Theory |

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