The Internet contributed to the birth of the term "The Streisand Effect". Well, the peculiarities of the psychology of Internet users and, probably, of any person. Interesting? Now you will find out everything.
History of the term
The Streisand Effect was born in 2003. It was then that the American singer Barbara Streisand filed an unusual lawsuit.
The star demanded compensation from photographer Kenneth Adelman for the fact that one of his pictures posted on the Internet showed her house.
Adelman was not at all an annoying paparazzi, he was not interested in real estate or Barbara's personal life. The photographer simply studied soil erosion on the coast (moreover, by order of the government) and took more than 12,000 photos, which he posted on the Web.
The image of Barbra Streisand's house was not at all popular, almost no one downloaded it, except for a couple of people (including the star's lawyer), but after the spread of information about the lawsuit filed by the star, the photo was viewed by more than 1,000,000 users!
It would seem that the unfortunate photographer had to file a counter-claim, because he was accused of God knows what! But he got a lot of benefit from this: a ridiculous lawsuit allowed his site to get hundreds of thousands of new visitors, and one of the agencies even bought the ill-fated photo from Adelman, offering a good amount for it.
As a result, of course, it was not possible to remove the image from the Web. Moreover, it was published in almost all the world's media.
In 2004, journalist Mein Masnick, describing a different (but similar) situation, used the term "The Streisand Effect", which quickly fell in love with everyone. Since then, the phenomena that all attempts to remove information from the Internet only lead to its wider dissemination have been called the Streisand effect.
By the way, in the same year, the court dismissed Barbara's claim and urged her to reimburse Kenneth Alman for all his legal expenses.
Virgin Killer
One example of the Streisand effect is the following story.
In 2008, an organization from England that monitors the legality of publishing materials on the Internet blacklisted Virgin Killer's Wikipedia article about the album of the popular band Scorpions. The decision was explained by the fact that the cover of the album depicts a practically naked girl, and this can be interpreted as the distribution of child pornography. As a result, the article received millions of views, and the image was instantly distributed to various sites.
Right tooblivion
In 2016, the Information Law was amended to allow Russians to remove links with outdated or false information about themselves from the search list.
In this case, the information will not be deleted from the Web, but the search engine will not give out the site. Only a user who knows the exact address will be able to access it. The only caveat: this function does not apply to the internal search of social networks.
Netizens have dubbed this law the “right to be forgotten.”
Pitfalls of the law
The “right to be forgotten”, of course, can allow Russians to save face, not to lose honor and dignity, or to avoid false accusations. However, the imperfection of the law leads to the appearance of such consequences, which are very difficult to cope with.1. Search engines are often unable to verify the accuracy of information, because they do not have any authority to do so. So it is not worth relying on the fact that Yandex itself will establish the accuracy of the information or a violation of the law.
2. Of all the requests received by users regarding the removal of a link about them from the search list, only 30% were satisfied. A huge number of applications "Yandex" simply does not have time to process. The way out should be the transfer of powers to control compliance with the “law of oblivion” to state bodies. But one can only hope for it.
3. The use of the "right to be forgotten" can turn into a loud scandal and the end of peaceful life. If the user is refused, then the media immediately begin to “pursue” him, trying to find out what he is hiding. If nothing can be found out, then the "poor" journalists have to invent "intrigues, scandals and investigations" on their own.
Thunder from a clear sky
The Streisand effect and Internet censorship in modern Russia are very closely connected. Moreover, it is not clear what is eggs and what is chicken. On the one hand, censorship breeds interest; on the other hand, unhe althy interest breeds censorship. This confirms a number of high-profile cases.
Not your "cat business"
One of the biggest Internet scandals was "The Cat Case". Famous cat trainer Yuri Kuklachev sued blogger Mikhail Verbitsky for calling Yuri a flayer and accusing him of using a taser when training animals.
It was not possible to settle the conflict behind the walls of the courthouse, therefore, in February 2010, compensation was collected from Verbitsky in favor of Kuklachev in the amount of 40,000 rubles. Unreliable, according to Kuklachev, the information was deleted. Which Verbitsky, by the way, considered an infringement of freedom of speech.
Literature banned
Strong examples of the Streisand effect are stories with the novel "Blue Lard" and "Monkey Upgrade".
V. Sorokin's book "Blue Fat" caused a wave of indignation in connection with the accusation of distributing pornographic materials. The publishing house that released it and Sorokin himself were sued. As a result, book sales have increased several times.
The story with A. Nikonov's book "Monkey Upgrade" is similar. They found hidden drug propaganda in it. From store shelvesthe book was withdrawn, but on the Internet it became a real bestseller.
How to beat the Streisand effect
In order not to start a wave of mass dissemination of unpleasant information about you, it is worth knowing a little psychology.
- Please note: at school, teasing "fat" or "bespectacled" is not just someone who is overweight or wears glasses, but someone who has a complex about it. Therefore, it is important to “turn on the ignore” in time and get past unreliable information without escalating the situation.
- The Streisand Effect is only alive because people are reacting very violently to restrictions on the Internet. Even if the prohibition is correct and logical, it simply cannot be forgotten. Remember how Herostat set fire to the temple of Artemis? He really wanted to be remembered. And even despite the fact that the unfortunate hero was executed, and his name was strictly forbidden to be mentioned, he has not been forgotten for 16 centuries.
- Take humor with everything, even compromising material or your photos on the Internet. Running to court with a lawsuit is definitely not worth it, even more so threatening - this way you will only attract everyone's attention to yourself.
Publicity stunt
Often a sensational effect is used for advertising or PR.
Non-standard social advertising of the site "Year of Youth", aimed at the formation of an active citizenship of young people, had an interesting annotation. It said that the material was banned from viewing, and it was not shown on television. Naturally, everyone was interested in what was in the video, and there were a lot of views. Nobody isI guessed that this was a publicity stunt, and it was not planned to show the video on TV anyway. The “forbidden information” technique is perhaps the most used publicity stunt today.
A touching story
American 9-year-old schoolgirl Martha Payne really wanted to support one of the charitable foundations helping African children. The girl decided to run her own NeverSeconds blog, where she posted photos of her school lunches. The name of the blog is related to the lack of opportunity to get a second portion of lunch in the school cafeteria. The girl described the dishes in great detail, their appearance, taste and calorie content. Gradually, the blog began to gain popularity among children from other countries, who shared photos of their meals with Martha. As a result, the opinion was formed that Martha's dinners are very small. Local journalists became interested in this and even wrote several articles.
The school administration reacted extremely negatively to the situation and forbade the girl to take pictures of lunches. Martha, saddened by this event, wrote a touching post on her blog that she could no longer help African children.
The public and the world's media were outraged by the act of the student council. As a result, the girl was again allowed to photograph food, and the blog became very popular, and the schoolgirl was able to help African kids with advertising funds.
No matter how strange it may sound, people are in no hurry to learn from the mistakes of others. Everyone is surethat he will definitely be able to defeat the attackers who spread false information about him. When it becomes clear that it is impossible to fight the multi-million dollar army of "gossips", nothing can be returned - the mechanism is launched, and it has no reverse. Alas.
