The Streisand effect: hiding something creates the opposite effect

In 2005, a pilot and a photographer flew over several locations along the California coast to obtain quality aerial photographs. The intentions of both were to publish some of these images on a specialized website, but by chance the photographs included some in which he appeared the house of the famous singer Barbra Streisand.

So far everything is more or less normal, but what happened next is no longer so. The singer, upon learning of the publication of these images, demanded their withdrawal from the Internet portal, since she interpreted the movement as a violation of her privacy. As a consequence, information that, if nothing had been done, would have gone completely unnoticed under the waves of information that shake the network of networks every day, became viral; Hundreds of thousands of people happened to know where Barbra Streisand lived, even without meaning to.

This anecdote served to name a type of phenomenon that is actually more common than it seems. This is the Streisand effect.

, currently well known in the field of Social Psychology and disciplines related to communication.

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What is the Streisand effect?

The Streisand effect is, fundamentally, an Internet phenomenon. What happens when a person or organization tries to keep information hidden and, precisely for this reason, what they try to keep away from the spotlight begins to become known, either by drawing the attention of the media in the first place or by going viral through personal accounts of users who "spread" that news.

In other words, the Streisand effect is a consequence of forgetting that what we do with the information is in turn another type of information that can attract more attention than the one with which it all started. Thus, the second makes the first gain interest and its popularity spreads, especially through the Internet, a medium in which news flies.

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Its effect for marketing

This fact is something that is of special interest both for famous people and for companies that want to preserve a good image. The latter, for example, frequently receive complaints from dissatisfied users and, given this, sometimes choose to eliminate evidence of these complaints. In turn, this can backfire, either because of videos-complaints published by those affected, comments that are being shared on Facebook walls, etc.

In addition, there are many people on the Internet who are interested in discovering these injustices, however small they are, and spend time and a minimum of effort to let more people know about this kind of situations.

Thus, many companies are more committed to transparency, which is not necessary due to ethical aspects of their work, but rather to prevent Streisand effect, even if it is of low intensity (for example, with a local scope that leads to information spreading over a city).

Much of what is done to build a strong brand image it can be spoiled if from one day to the next certain information goes viral and discredits the entire organization, so it is worth investing in prevent these situations, for example, hiring a community manager who is in charge of mediating with dissatisfied customers without restricting their freedom of expression.

Why does the Streisand effect occur?

The Streisand effect can be understood from two concepts: reverse psychology and infoxication.

The Reverse psychology It is the phenomenon by which individuals begin to feel more attraction to an option when it has been prohibited, or when the possibility of seeing it has been closed. It is, in fact, something that is sometimes used to educate young children. The idea is that, whether it is necessary to impose a ban on opting for that option, then the prohibited content must have some kind of interest, one that we would not have to think about if someone had not appeared to limit our range of possible actions.

On the other hand, the infoxication It is the phenomenon of a progressive production and accumulation of irrelevant information in which sink all kinds of news that, based on certain objective criteria, can be understood to be tools.

By default, the publication of a piece of news causes it to be quickly forgotten unless it is broadcast from the beginning by a medium with a wide audience. However, on irrelevant news it is possible to build a more relevant one, for example, by trying to keep it hidden. This causes that information to be "refloated" and breaks that natural progression that would lead it to go completely unnoticed and forgotten in a few days.