Streisand Effect

From Weekly I/O#33


Streisand Effect: The attempt to suppress information can increase awareness of that information.

Article: The Platform is the Message

According to Wikipedia, "The Streisand effect is a phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information, often via the Internet."

This term was first coined for the American singer Barbra Streisand trying to repress something she didn't want other people to see online, ended up making it be seen by way more people.

For online content, the line between advocacy and parody is usually vague since online culture, or to be more specific, meme culture, is awash in layers of irony. There's no clear way to tell whether any memetic content is entirely sincere or entirely ironic on the Internet. We cannot find anything that's a pure exemplar of doing something entirely unironically or any critique of something that is not also partially an advertisement for them.


Want to learn 5 bite-sized cool things like this every week to understand the world better? Sign up below for my free weekly newsletter and learn together!

Weeklyio Banner

You might also like