WEBVTT - How Does the 'Streisand Effect' Make Cover-ups Go Viral? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.600 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:11.160 brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. The rich and powerful bullies 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.680 of the world, governments, corporations, celebrities, et cetera have lots 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:21.520 of creative ways to control the public's access to information intimidation, bands, bribery, 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.720 or straight up censorship, especially when that information makes them 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.320 look bad. But every once in a while, and especially 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:35.680 clumsy control effort backfires spectacularly. Take the case of Barbra Streisand, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.960 the award winning actress, singer, and owner of a sprawling 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.800 mega mansion near the wealthy coastal enclave of Malibu, California. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.599 Back in two thousand three, Streisand sued a photographer by 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.559 the name of Kenneth Edelman because he refused to lead 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.559 a photo of her Malibu mansion from an online project 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.760 that tracked erosion on the California coastline. Edelman wasn't a 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.200 paparazzo trying to snag a shot of Babs in her 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:03.520 bathing suit. He was documenting an important environmental issue. But 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.320 Streisand obviously felt that her privacy had been violated, or 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.840 perhaps wanted to nip future violations in the bud so 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:15.160 she took Adelman to court for fifty million dollars in damages. Yep, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.600 that's for one photo. The irony was that before Streisand 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.319 took Adelman to court, the online image of her house 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.080 had been downloaded a grand total of six times, including 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.440 twice by her own lawyers. But after the media caught 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.240 wind of the lawsuit, the image was downloaded four hundred 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.640 and twenty thousand times in just a month and publicized 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.280 around the world. For an added kick in the teeth 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.560 that judge dismissed the case. Streisand wasn't the first to 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.120 get burned by her own attempt to repress information, but 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.520 her name became indelibly attached to the phenomenon when Tector 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.000 blogger Mike Masnick jokingly labeled the backfire the Streisand Effect. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.400 But we spoke with Sue Curry Jansen, professor emeritus of 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.840 Media and Communications at Inburg College, who co authored a 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.280 paper about the curious dynamics of the Streisand Effect. She 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.079 said nobody had paid much attention to the whole thing 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.120 until the lawsuit, which I'm sure Streisand wishes she had 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:16.400 never undertaken. The Streisand effect is a product of public 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.600 outrage and blowback over a perceived attempt by someone with 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.000 the power to repress free speech to do so. As 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.360 Streisand's lawsuit shows, sometimes a supposedly dangerous piece of information 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.920 wouldn't likely draw much attention if left uncensored, but the 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.440 very act of trying to repress it creates public curiosity 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.920 and even outrage, which ends up shining a far brighter 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.160 light on the information in the process. It's also been 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.119 shown that banning books or blocking access to certain websites 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.519 only serves to increase public demand for that information. One 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.720 study from eighteen found that China's attempts to block access 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.239 to sites like Twitter and Facebook prompted millions of otherwise 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.960 a political citizens to download VPN software to evade the 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:05.200 sensors and access those sites. In the paper, Jansen and 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.200 her co author highlight some truly shining examples of the 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.639 Streisand effect at work, from global corporations to grade school cafeterias. 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.200 For example, the fast food giant McDonald's made a huge 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.240 mistake in the nineteen nineties when it sued two volunteers 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.919 with the activist organization London Greenpeace for a street pamphlet 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.640 that they wrote called What's Wrong with McDonald's. The trial, 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.480 which the British press dubbed McLibel, became the longest running 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.200 civil trial in British history and handed critics of McDonald's 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.480 a media bull horn for publicizing the chain's exploitative advertising, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:44.240 low pay and unhealthy food. And just like streisand McDonald's, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.200 ended up losing the lawsuit. In two thousand three, Fox 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.440 News sued Al Franken, then a comedian and actor not 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:55.280 yet a senator, for copyright infringement over his anti conservative 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.200 book called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.880 A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Fox News 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.720 alleged that the phrase fair and balanced was its own 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:09.040 intellectual property, but a judge disagreed. Not only did Fox 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.080 News lose the case, but the free publicity shot Franken's 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.920 book to the top of the best seller list in Scotland. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.800 In a nine year old schoolgirl by the name of 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.320 Martha Payne began taking pictures of her school cafeteria lunches 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.040 and writing about them on her personal blog. When chef 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.640 and TV personality Jamie Oliver tweeted about Pain's blog, the 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.000 site received three million hits in just two months, the 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.839 local town council, fearing that the grade schooler was making 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.800 them look bad, banned her from taking photos at school. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.600 Of course, Pain blogged about the band too, which then 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.880 made international news. The town council wound up publicly apologizing 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.680 and they removed the band. Then, in twenty nineteen, Republican 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.840 Senator Devin Nunez filed a lawsuit against Twitter, alleging that 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.440 he was defamed on the platform by Republican political strategist 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.520 Liz May and by the anonymous owners of the Twitter 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:08.240 accounts Devon Ninez's Cow and Devon Ninez's Mom. Before the lawsuit, 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.960 devon Ninez's Cow had only one thousand, two hundred and 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.159 nine followers. After the lawsuit was filed, it's shot up 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.480 to fifty four thousand. A year later, the account has 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.479 over seven hundred and twenty two thousand followers and has 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.800 inspired several more copycat accounts. The lawsuit is still ongoing, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:32.400 but Jansen says that unfortunately, most censorship efforts are successful. 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.680 Quote that's the way power works. For example, the non 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.320 disclosure agreements that employees have to sign to work at 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.520 many corporations, you can know something really bad is going on, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.360 but you can't tell anyone. Not only will you be fired, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.200 but you'll be sued. Even if a powerful person or 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.960 entity is caught trying to silence a critic or hide 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.599 a dirty secret, there's a whole crisis management playbook to 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:02.000 diffuse public outcry, sometimes called outrage management. In the paper, 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.360 Jansen and her co author list five techniques at sensors 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.640 used to discredit and silence critics, covering up the action, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:15.839 devaluing the target, reinterpreting events by lying, minimizing consequences, blaming others, 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.240 and using favorable framing, using official channels to give an 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:25.320 appearance of justice, and intimidating or rewarding people involved. Jansen 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.520 said there are pr people who are very good at 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.320 doing this kind of thing. They set up listening sessions 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.120 with people who are objecting to something, then single out 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.480 one or two people and put them on a committee. 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.839 Sometimes they even overtly bribe people with some kind of 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.840 honorific and then proceed with whatever they intended to do 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:47.040 in the first place. The streisand effect can be an 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.080 effective check on censorship and the more general misuse of 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.039 power to bully critics into silence, but only if the 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.320 act is dragged into the light by a free and 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.520 unfettered press. None of the examples we cited above, including 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.560 Stresa End, would have happened if not for journalists picking 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.640 up the stories and bringing them to the public's attention. Unfortunately, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.040 the effectiveness of the media as a check on this 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.840 sort of misuse and abuse of power has taken a 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.280 hit during this are fake News era. If politicians and 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.360 other people in power can dismiss news stories that make 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.240 them look bad as being biased or false, then the 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.480 power of the streisand effect dries up. Jansen said, that's 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.920 a real issue. The whole sense of what is the 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:37.679 truth has been undermined quite deliberately. Today's episode was written 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.280 by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. For more 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.360 on listen lots of other topics, visit how Stuff works 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.000 dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of by Heart Radio. 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.240 For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.920 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:50.760 your favorite shows.