Well, we have two “gentlemen” from the southern part of the state who obviously do not understand Free Speech and how blogs work. They have also decided to raise a fuss given actions in the last election. What is “The Streisand Effect” you ask? Well, as these two are about to find out, it is a blogger’s delight:
The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.
It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California, inadvertently drew further public attention to it. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters to suppress numbers, files, and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.[1][2]
So, I received a phone call from one this afternoon demanding I take down posts from one of my authors. I subsequently found out that at another site (which shall remain linkless for now) did accede to their demands and did the takedowns. Then I started to receive a series of emails from another “gentleman” absolutely demanding I do such – and has threatened legal action.
Hmmm – but never pointing out exactly what is WRONG or factually incorrect with any of those posts. Even after repeated requests, I have received zip, nada, nothing.
Now let’s add into this stew is that both of these folks are public figures. Puts a bit of a different slant, I guess, because that other site completely soiled themselves to see how fast they could unpublish things. Us? I look at public figures this way:
They put their underwear on the same way(s) the rest of us do. Later on, when I start putting up more details (and names), perhaps this will give you a nightmare of a visualization.
Yes, The Streisand Effect meets the Chinese Water Torture. Last chance, boys – what say you now?
