Definition of Streisand Effect

“If you build it, he will come"Barefoot Joe" Jackson (Ray Liotta) snaps at Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in the film Field of Dreams; to define the call Streisand effect we can paraphrase the previous sentence as "if you ban it, they will reproduce it”.

The call "Streisand effect”Consists of the reproduction through digital channels of the Internet, of information that is she tries to censor, so she ends up getting even more publicity than the censors.

It is presumably a basic human quality to be interested in anything that is prohibited, be it ourselves or others. And that is precisely what this effect is about, since it dictates that all prohibited information will generate even greater interest.

This is to the detriment of those who try to prohibit it, since thanks to the facilities it provides InternetLike social networks, the interest aroused is nurtured and allows a greater dissemination of the information that was intended to be eradicated.

The name of the Streisand effect comes from the famous American singer and actress.

In 2003, Barbra Streisand sued a page that published photos of properties properties located on the California coast, in order to denounce the erosion that the coast she suffered with the building of houses on the very first line of the sea.

Streisand complained that the publication violated his privacy, and a court agreed with him by forcing the website that hosted it to remove it from its database.

However, and if even before the complaint, the image had aroused little interest, the complaint filed by the singer had multiplied the downloads by several orders and had viralized it to such an extent that people shared it through the mail, bulletin boards, and instant messaging (social media would still take two to three years to emerge and become popular).

Subsequently, we have been able to experience many other examples of this effect.

One of these occurred in Tunisia in 2007, consisting of the prohibition of government Tunisian access to YouTube and Dailymotion videos recorded by opponents. These videos began to circulate clandestinely on the Internet, having a great impact on the population.

In 2013, singer Beyoncé performed a interpretation during the Super Bowl halfway event, which left highly suggestive images for a Photoshop lover. The subsequent appearance of an article that compiled some of these modified images in Buzzfeed, had the singer's PR manager kindly request her withdrawal... just to see how it was published a second reportage denouncing the attempt at censorship, and it became viral.

The film The Interview, which North Korea wanted to prevent from spreading, gained even greater notoriety, even despite the hack suffered by Sony, and despite the fact that it ended up being projected in fewer movie theater than it should have been, its diffusion through the Internet was maximized.

It is also nothing new; in 1988, and therefore before the emergence of the Internet among the general public, the bookSatanic verses by British Indian writer Salman Rushdie, was banned by the Ayatollah regime in Iran, prompting much more attention - especially in the Christian western world - on it than if no one had tried to ban it.

Probably, empathy for those who are forbidden something, allows the so-called "Streisand effect" to exist.