Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. The rich and powerful bullies of the world, governments, corporations, celebrities, et cetera have lots of creative ways to control the public's access to information intimidation, bands, bribery, or straight up censorship, especially when that information makes them look bad. But every once in a while, and especially
clumsy control effort backfires spectacularly. Take the case of Barbra Streisand, the award winning actress, singer, and owner of a sprawling mega mansion near the wealthy coastal enclave of Malibu, California. Back in two thousand three, Streisand sued a photographer by the name of Kenneth Edelman because he refused to lead a photo of her Malibu mansion from an online project that tracked erosion on the California coastline. Edelman wasn't a paparazzo trying to snag a shot of Babs in her
bathing suit. He was documenting an important environmental issue. But Streisand obviously felt that her privacy had been violated, or perhaps wanted to nip future violations in the bud so she took Adelman to court for fifty million dollars in damages. Yep, that's for one photo. The irony was that before Streisand took Adelman to court, the online image of her house had been downloaded a grand total of six times, including
twice by her own lawyers. But after the media caught wind of the lawsuit, the image was downloaded four hundred and twenty thousand times in just a month and publicized around the world. For an added kick in the teeth that judge dismissed the case. Streisand wasn't the first to get burned by her own attempt to repress information, but her name became indelibly attached to the phenomenon when Tector blogger Mike Masnick jokingly labeled the backfire the Streisand Effect.
But we spoke with Sue Curry Jansen, professor emeritus of Media and Communications at Inburg College, who co authored a paper about the curious dynamics of the Streisand Effect. She said nobody had paid much attention to the whole thing until the lawsuit, which I'm sure Streisand wishes she had never undertaken. The Streisand effect is a product of public outrage and blowback over a perceived attempt by someone with
the power to repress free speech to do so. As Streisand's lawsuit shows, sometimes a supposedly dangerous piece of information wouldn't likely draw much attention if left uncensored, but the very act of trying to repress it creates public curiosity and even outrage, which ends up shining a far brighter light on the information in the process. It's also been shown that banning books or blocking access to certain websites
only serves to increase public demand for that information. One study from eighteen found that China's attempts to block access to sites like Twitter and Facebook prompted millions of otherwise a political citizens to download VPN software to evade the sensors and access those sites. In the paper, Jansen and her co author highlight some truly shining examples of the Streisand effect at work, from global corporations to grade school cafeterias.
For example, the fast food giant McDonald's made a huge mistake in the nineteen nineties when it sued two volunteers with the activist organization London Greenpeace for a street pamphlet that they wrote called What's Wrong with McDonald's. The trial, which the British press dubbed McLibel, became the longest running civil trial in British history and handed critics of McDonald's a media bull horn for publicizing the chain's exploitative advertising,
low pay and unhealthy food. And just like streisand McDonald's, ended up losing the lawsuit. In two thousand three, Fox News sued Al Franken, then a comedian and actor not yet a senator, for copyright infringement over his anti conservative book called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Fox News alleged that the phrase fair and balanced was its own
intellectual property, but a judge disagreed. Not only did Fox News lose the case, but the free publicity shot Franken's book to the top of the best seller list in Scotland. In a nine year old schoolgirl by the name of Martha Payne began taking pictures of her school cafeteria lunches
and writing about them on her personal blog. When chef and TV personality Jamie Oliver tweeted about Pain's blog, the site received three million hits in just two months, the local town council, fearing that the grade schooler was making them look bad, banned her from taking photos at school. Of course, Pain blogged about the band too, which then made international news. The town council wound up publicly apologizing
and they removed the band. Then, in twenty nineteen, Republican Senator Devin Nunez filed a lawsuit against Twitter, alleging that he was defamed on the platform by Republican political strategist Liz May and by the anonymous owners of the Twitter accounts Devon Ninez's Cow and Devon Ninez's Mom. Before the lawsuit, devon Ninez's Cow had only one thousand, two hundred and nine followers. After the lawsuit was filed, it's shot up
to fifty four thousand. A year later, the account has over seven hundred and twenty two thousand followers and has inspired several more copycat accounts. The lawsuit is still ongoing, but Jansen says that unfortunately, most censorship efforts are successful. Quote that's the way power works. For example, the non disclosure agreements that employees have to sign to work at many corporations, you can know something really bad is going on, but you can't tell anyone. Not only will you be fired,
but you'll be sued. Even if a powerful person or entity is caught trying to silence a critic or hide a dirty secret, there's a whole crisis management playbook to
diffuse public outcry, sometimes called outrage management. In the paper, Jansen and her co author list five techniques at sensors used to discredit and silence critics, covering up the action, devaluing the target, reinterpreting events by lying, minimizing consequences, blaming others, and using favorable framing, using official channels to give an appearance of justice, and intimidating or rewarding people involved. Jansen said there are pr people who are very good at
doing this kind of thing. They set up listening sessions with people who are objecting to something, then single out one or two people and put them on a committee. Sometimes they even overtly bribe people with some kind of honorific and then proceed with whatever they intended to do in the first place. The streisand effect can be an effective check on censorship and the more general misuse of power to bully critics into silence, but only if the act is dragged into the light by a free and
unfettered press. None of the examples we cited above, including Stresa End, would have happened if not for journalists picking up the stories and bringing them to the public's attention. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the media as a check on this sort of misuse and abuse of power has taken a hit during this are fake News era. If politicians and other people in power can dismiss news stories that make them look bad as being biased or false, then the
power of the streisand effect dries up. Jansen said, that's a real issue. The whole sense of what is the truth has been undermined quite deliberately. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on listen lots of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.