Required #6- Streisand Effect

In chapter five: Hugo Chavez Would Like to Welcome You to the Spinternet Morozov talked about the Streisand Effect. The Streisand effect is an internet phenomenon where trying to hide information on the internet generates further publicity. The effect was named for the efforts of Barbra Streisand to hide photographs of her house on the internet. Attempts to hide the house caused internet users to duplicate and mirror images of her house causing more people to know about the images than if she would have just done nothing. Another prominent example is the attempt to block an AACS key from being released on digg.com. Instead of the keying being quietly taken down internet, activists posted the key all around the internet.

In the Internet Age, it is almost better for governments, organizations, and people to leave "bad" information on the internet then try and take it down. It is almost impossible now to take down information from the internet. Any attempts to take down the information, will cause users to quickly replicate and mirror the image across multiple sites making it almost 100% impossible to take down the information.

This Streisand effect can have some potentially very serious negative repercussions. For example, if someone was accused of murder and someone else created a site highlighting all of the accused person's personnel information. If it later came out that the person accused was innocent, the accused person's information would be all over the internet for anyone to see. Most people in that situation would try and get that site taken down so that people cannot see all of their personnel information. If the Streisand Effect phenomenon were to happen, that personnel information would now be all over the internet.

While some would argue that, it is better for that person to just leave the site alone because there is so much information on the internet. While that is probably technically correct, it does not mean it is the right thing to do. I know that I would not my personnel information all over the internet in a situation similar to that.

This is just one of the negative impacts of technology that Morozov talked about multiple times in his book. I tend to agree with most of Morozov's conclusions regarding technology. Technology can do great things, but there are many potentially negatives that users must be careful. Every technology that exists can be used for good and bad and users must be careful not to assume people will always use technology for good.