Please note that the latest version of this page will be kept at https://jeremydaw.github.io/streisand-effect

The Streisand Effect

What is the Streisand Effect?

Described here

The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information.
The name came about when the famous actress sued (unsuccessfully) to have a photograph of her house removed from the internet. But it
had been downloaded only six times prior to Streisand's lawsuit, two of those being by Streisand's attorneys. Public awareness of the case led to more than 420,000 people visiting the site over the following month.
In the case of one recent incident (litigation to have a publicly available report (8MB) removed) the press has noted the Streisand effect, see here
Because of Blackman's heavy-handed lawsuit, Poulson's reporting now has coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Mail, and Courthouse News – a classic example of the so-called 'Streisand effect.'
and here
Blackman admitted in his declaration that since he sued Poulson, "the sealed report and its contents ... have been spread and are spreading far more broadly than before." It sounds like he’s already learning about the Streisand Effect — let's make sure the next SLAPP-happy tech bro knows about it too.

What is this site about?

Frequently there are attempts to punish or suppress people expressing their views. And I've observed that even when such attempts are well reported, there is often no link to what those people have said or written.

These pages aim to provide those links, with the aim of increasing the readership of that speech or writing. The goal of this is to make the punishment or attempted suppression of it ineffective and counterproductive. And hopefully to deter such punishment or suppression.

Why now?

Well, I've had this idea for some time, was spurred on to action when one day I got several emails with articles about the police action against Asa Winstanley. So he is the first writer whose work I want to support and publicise.

Note re internet archives

Sometimes material which has been on the internet is removed. This can be for various reasons, often that someone has decided that they don't want you reading it. (In that case they may or may not have legal authority to say you shouldn't read it.) There are places which keep a record of material which has been on the internet in the past. The ones I know of are

Thus, for example, where someone complains that the list of MPs in the group called Labour Friends of Israel (in the UK) is no longer accessible, you can do a web search: (in archive.today), first for https://www.lfi.org.uk/*, find the URL you want, which is https://www.lfi.org.uk/lfi-parliamentary-supporters/, then search for that to see the page as it was saved at some past dates, of which the most recent is https://archive.md/ykLus

Or when the complaint is made that Keir Starmer's "ten pledges" have now been erased from his website: (in archive.today), first search for https://keirstarmer.com/* and find the right URL, which is https://keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges/, to get the archived version at https://archive.vn/AayAz

Plans for this blog

I'll probably put this stuff on substack or somewhere similar, if and when I work out how to use it effectively. Meanwhile I do seem to have succeeded in setting up something at https://streisandeffect.substack.com/, and an email address streisandeffect@substack.com So far I've paid more attention to writing than to working out how to put it somewhere like substack; but this page has links to it all.

So what is intended to follow here is an expanding list of references to particular cases, with their consequent reading recommendations. Please send me suggestions of similar items to add!

Particular cases or categories

Asa Winstanley

Read more here. Writer about Palestine etc, investigated for terrorism, involving a dawn police raid on his home, and confiscation of his electronic devices. Read his writing on his substack Palestine is Still the Issue or at the Electronic Intifada.

Other UK police actions

These keep on happening, challenging my capacity to keep up with them. See separate article here. I've also written an article about the legislation underlying a lot of the actions.

Other government actions

Common examples are expulsion from a country (or eg cancelling visas), arrests of journalists etc. See this article here.

Social media censorship

Social media platforms can, on account of the political views expressed,

It may be argued that they have the same right to do this as a mainstream newspaper or news broadcaster - but they certainly shouldn't do this without the public knowing that's what is happening.

Anyhow, my purpose here is to encourage you to read/view material which the social media platforms don't want you to see on account of the political outlook expressed. See this article here.

Academia

As a former academic myself, I suppose I am particularly shocked when academics - or students - are punished for their speech, or when universities make policies on overtly political grounds. On these topics, see this article here.

Germany - the Palestine Congress

German police shut down the Palestine Congress in Berlin: they arrested several attendees, banned a proposed speaker (the rector of the University of Glasgow) from entering the country and (allegedly) banned another speaker (formerly Greece's Minister of Finance) from speaking there. See this article here.