Intellectual Property Law

The ?Streisand Effect? and Child Porn

By Tim Feathers

The “Streisand Effect” is alive and well as evidenced by the recent actions of the Internet Watch Foundation in retracting its objection to a Wikipedia page that contained an image of a naked girl. Story here. The image at issue is on an album cover of the heavy metal band the Scorpions dating back to 1976. Predictably, the IWF’s objection, and accompanying warning that said the page could constitute "potential illegal child sexual abuse" simply inflamed the anti-censorship crowd, and sent droves searching for the image to see what all the fuss was about. In retracting its objection, the IWF made the following statement:

"IWF's overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect. We regret the unintended consequences for Wikipedia and its users."

The term Streisand Effect was coined by TechDirt in 2005, to describe the phenomenon whereby an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information on the Internet backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized. The “Butter” gal was upset about an aerial photo of her home being made available on the Internet, and reportedly sued the photographer for $10 million. As a result of the suit,

Full post as published by The TechKnowledgy Blog on December 10, 2008 (boomark / email).