The Streisand Effect explained

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The Streisand effect describes what happens when you try to censor or suppress information—and in doing so, you draw far more attention to it than it ever had before.

The name comes from an incident involving Barbra Streisand in 2003. She attempted to have an aerial photograph of her house removed from a publicly available collection of California coastline images. The images were intended to document coastal erosion, not celebrity homes. Before the legal action, the photo had reportedly been viewed only a handful of times. After the attempt to remove it, interest exploded and views of the photo apparently went from 6 to 420,000.

The attempt to suppress the information became the story.

The term Streisand Effect was later coined by Mike Masnick , founder of Techdirt, to describe this recurring pattern.

What does the Streisand Effect mean?

The Streisand Effect is about attention.

Attempts to hide or erase something can signal that something is worth looking at. Efforts to suppress information can:

Trigger curiosity
Signal importance or guilt (even when none exists)
Encourage people to share something specifically because it is being discouraged (see The Boaty McBoatface Effect)

Ironically, doing nothing is often the least effective way to spread something.

Streisand Effect examples

Barbra Streisand’s house

The original case. A low-interest image became globally famous because of an attempt to remove it.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Life of Brian follows a man born in a stable who is mistaken dof Jesus. Before its release in 1979, Life of Brian faced protests and bans for alleged blasphemy. Councils debated it, churches condemned it, and some cinemas refused to show it.

The controversy dramatically increased public awareness. Many people went to see the film precisely because it was controversial.

Eric Idle—one of the Pythons—in Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, said: "Half of the UK banned it and the other half flocked to see it. Sweden advertised it as the movie so funny that Norwegians weren’t allowed to see it."

Government Documents and Redactions

Governments removing or redacting material is a prime case for the Streisand Effect. Quietly erasing material, if it's noticed, is often a recipe for drawing intrigue as to why it was erased.

Sometimes the best way to stop something spreading is to let it quietly fade.

Trying to censor or hide information can be the best way to draw attention to it.

Related Ideas to The Streisand Effect

Also see:

Published 28 Jan 2018

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The cobra effect is when well-intentioned actions to achieve an aim backfire and sometimes produce the opposite effect. The story goes something like this: Back in colonial India, the top Brit in charge decided there were too many cobras around Delhi. To reduce the population, they put in place a cash reward, or bounty, for anyone who brought in a dead cobra. The intention was clear. Legend has it that people did bring in the cobras reliably because some enterprising souls had started breeding cobras for the very purpose of getting the bounty. When the authorities realised this, they scrapped the scheme, the cobra farms closed, and the bred cobras were released into the wild, significantly increasing the cobra population by a few orders of magnitude. Hence, the cobra effect: when a well-intentioned measure can have the opposite effect to that desired. It’s not clear how true this story is, but the cobra effect has been demonstrated many times. The Freakonomics podcast on the cobra effect discusses some excellent examples (with references), including: A bounty on rats in French colonial Hanoi, where the bounty was earned by bringing in a rat tail, which went the same way as the cobra story Removing wild pigs at Fort Benning, Georgia, at $40 a pig's tail, that didn’t make a dent. It's possible that the hunters would bait the pigs with all sorts of tempting scraps. Many pigs learned to avoid the hunters and instead bred like crazy while well-fed on scraps. The capital of Colombia, Bogotá, tried to reduce traffic congestion by restricting each car from driving on one day during the week. The result: people started buying more than one car and drove more on weekends. The publication of proposed areas for habitat protection to be protected for endangered species led land developers to respond by building in those areas before the land was protected. People are smart. Incentives work—in the sense that you tend to get what you incentivise. So be careful what you are incentivising. As Charlie Munger said, "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome." Related Ideas to the Cobra Effect Also see: The law of unintended consequences Goodhart’s Law Campbell's Law What gets measured gets better You get what you measure The Boaty McBoatface EffectThe cobra effect is when well-intentioned actions to achieve an aim backfire and sometimes produce the opposite effect. The story goes something like this: Back in colonial India, the top Brit in charge decided there were too many cobras around Delhi. To reduce the population, they put in place a cash reward, or bounty, for anyone who brought in a dead cobra. The intention was clear. Legend has it that people did bring in the cobras reliably because some enterprising souls had started breeding cobras for the very purpose of getting the bounty. When the authorities realised this, they scrapped the scheme, the cobra farms closed, and the bred cobras were released into the wild, significantly increasing the cobra population by a few orders of magnitude. Hence, the cobra effect: when a well-intentioned measure can have the opposite effect to that desired. It’s not clear how true this story is, but the cobra effect has been demonstrated many times. The Freakonomics podcast on the cobra effect discusses some excellent examples (with references), including: A bounty on rats in French colonial Hanoi, where the bounty was earned by bringing in a rat tail, which went the same way as the cobra story Removing wild pigs at Fort Benning, Georgia, at $40 a pig's tail, that didn’t make a dent. It's possible that the hunters would bait the pigs with all sorts of tempting scraps. Many pigs learned to avoid the hunters and instead bred like crazy while well-fed on scraps. The capital of Colombia, Bogotá, tried to reduce traffic congestion by restricting each car from driving on one day during the week. The result: people started buying more than one car and drove more on weekends. The publication of proposed areas for habitat protection to be protected for endangered species led land developers to respond by building in those areas before the land was protected. People are smart. Incentives work—in the sense that you tend to get what you incentivise. So be careful what you are incentivising. As Charlie Munger said, "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome." Related Ideas to the Cobra Effect Also see: The law of unintended consequences Goodhart’s Law Campbell's Law What gets measured gets better You get what you measure The Boaty McBoatface Effect

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