Turns Out Barbra Streisand Is Aware Of The Streisand Effect, But Seems Confused About It

Too Much Free Time

from the rarefied-air dept

As some folks know, back in 2005, right here on Techdirt, I coined “The Streisand Effect,” as a throwaway line at the end of a post. It was in reference to a story from two years earlier regarding Streisand suing photographer Ken Adelman after he had started the California Coastal Records Project, in which he aimed to photograph the west coast of the United States from a helicopter every few years to document erosion. One of the many, many photos on the site included Streisand’s coastal mansion. Streisand claimed that this was an invasion of privacy and violated California’s anti-paparazzi law. Except that before she filed the lawsuit the photo had a grand total of six views, two of which were by Streisand’s lawyers. Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, nearly half a million people viewed the image.

Hence, my coining of the Streisand Effect, that attempts to suppress information one does not like online are likely to make that content much, much, more visible.

However, until last week, I had no idea if Streisand herself had ever heard of the term. Honestly, I doubted that she had. While the term has taken on a life of its own (which I had nothing to do with after coining it), it still seemed at least obscure enough that it seemed unlikely that Streisand herself would come across it.

But, with the recent publication of her memoirs, we learn that she does indeed know about it.

“When I first heard the term, I naively thought, Is that about the effect of my music?” she wrote in her book. “Little did I know.”

Streisand went on to say she didn’t intend to try to remove the picture of her house from the website. She merely didn’t want her name to be publicized with it, for security reasons.

Apparently there’s a page and a half about it in the book, though I doubt I’ll read it.

As for the claim that she “didn’t intend to try to remove the picture,” the historical record says that’s bullshit. Here’s the original letter her lawyers sent Adelman:

The second thread letter was more explicit:

She very clearly was “intending to try to remove the picture.” And, I mean, the lawsuit says as much as well:

So, uh, no, Babs doesn’t get to rewrite the history here. She very clearly attempted to remove the image.

Oh yeah. As a few people alerted me, Irish Times film correspondent Donald Clarke posted on exTwitter a snippet of the book, in (way before the Streisand Effect ever becomes a thing) how she learned in the 1960s that, “I learned very quickly that if you tried to correct a story, it only drew more attention to it.” Clarke notes that later in the book she talks about the Streisand Effect, but never connects the two things…

I guess she could have named it herself…

Filed Under: barbra streisand, ken adelman, revisionist history, streisand effect