Legal Research

The Upside of the Streisand Effect

By admin

I love all these stories on The Streisand Effect. (And not just because I love diva singers.)

What?s the Streisand Effect?

From Mental Floss blog:

” ?The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.? ? Internet pioneer John Gilmore

Back in 2003, aerial photographer Kenneth Adelman photographed hundreds of miles of California coastline as part of a government-sanctioned effort to document coastal erosion. Of the 12,000 photographs he took and posted online, one happened to include an opulent cliffside mansion belonging to none other than Barbara Streisand. She sued, citing privacy concerns. Not only was her suit dismissed, but the picture of her home went viral, and suddenly what had been an extremely obscure part of a giant project hidden deep within the Internet was featured on blogs everywhere, ultimately being viewed a half-million times. Thus was coined the ?Streisand Effect.? ”

And here’s what evil Stephen thinks might be fun. We take that old lesson from Br’er Rabbit who said “Don’t put me in the briar patch, anything but the briar patch…!”

What library hater do we take public . . .? I think this is also similar to publishing lists of challenged or banned books. Some of the blocked or challenged websites are also humourous and shine a light on censorship too.

I suppose you can’t actually seed these things but when you get gifted with them . . .

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on February 12, 2011 (boomark / email).