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Short Stuff: Streisand Effect · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's Babs. This is short stuff. Let's go Babs. Yeah,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: we talked about this at some point, the Streisand effect,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: wherein when you try to cover something up online, all
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you do is draw more attention to it. Yeah, and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it blows up in your face a ka, backfires Barbara. Yeah,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: but I mean Barbara Streisand isn't the first person to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: have something blow up in her face or backfire when
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: she tried to censor anything, and yet she got saddled
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: with this term. I think it's just a little bit
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of internet justice. Maybe, um, but at the very least,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: we should probably give a little background on what Barbara
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: did to try to censor something in the first place
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: on the internet that drew the ire that ended up
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: getting her saddled with this. Wait a minute, that was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: way too long for a short stuff, Chuck, let's edit
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: this out and start over. So in two thousand three,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Babs sued a photographer his name is Kenneth Adelman, because
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: she said, I want you to delete this photo that
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: you took from the sky that has my Malibu estate
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: in it. She said, will you delete and he said, uh, well,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: first of all, I was I'm not paparazzo. I was
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: doing an online project trekking erosion on the coastline. Your
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: house happened to be in it, and it's a big
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: environmental issue. And she said, well, I don't care. I'm
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: gonna sue you for fifty million dollars. Fifty million dollars.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: This guy is not you know, it's not Sheldon Addleson.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It's Kenneth Addleman. He doesn't have fifty million dollars. And
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: she wasn't laying out in the nude. It was just
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: her house, right, And again it was part of this
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: erosion project. So um, when it got out pretty quickly
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that Barbara Streisan was suing some some guy for fifty
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: million dollar dollers, it got picked up by the news
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and a lot of attention was drawn to this previously
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: fully overlooked thing, which was the photo of her house
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: on the Malibu Coastline. I believe it had been downloaded
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: six times in the entire history of that photographs existence, um,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and two of those times were by her lawyer. But
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I think the number jumped up quite a bit after
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: word got out about the lawsuit. Is that not correct, Chuck, Yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: the streisand effect happened and it was downloaded close to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a half a million, half a million times. And the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: next month after this lawsuit came out, and it prompted
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a blogger from dirt Tech name Michael Masnick to what
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I say, dirt tech, dirt Tech, that's the hillbilly version.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Uh he he labeled the strice End effect, and it
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: kind of took hold. Yeah, it did, um because it's
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: catchy and everybody likes Barbra Streisen, but there's also something
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: about her that everybody doesn't like to you know, Uh,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Emily loves her. There's nothing she doesn't like really since
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a little like then No, No, she's a big fan
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of Babs that that Christmas record plays on repeat. Have
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you ever heard well that I'm sure that the answer
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to this is yes. Have you ever heard, um that
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: her duets with Barry Gibb Oh? Sure those are great? Okay, Yeah,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: they're about as good as a duet gets. And Barbara
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Strasend's great on her own. But I just think personally,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I get the impression that she's always been the kind
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: who would suit just an average person. For fifty million dollars.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean. You've never heard her take
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: on jingle bells. I don't think so, which is bizarre
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: because I've been on this planet for forty three years,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and I thought I've heard every Christmas song ever created
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: around the world fifty million times. Oh, you would know it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It's uh, she she changes it up a lot. I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: gotta hear this. It's jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: jingle love the way. Hey what yes, Chuck, you just
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: literally changed my life. Yeah, just go listen to it
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: after this. You'll get a kick out of it, all right,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I definitely will you. You're probably gonna want to throw
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: your sound system out the window. Or you might think
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: it's the best thing ever. It's it's one of the two. Okay,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll just keep vascillating back and forth. All right,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: So Strice in effect happens, she gets labeled, uh, you know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: gets named after her. And they've actually been studies on
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: this kind of thing since then. There was one in
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  Speaker 1: China in two thousand eighteen that found out that their
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: attempts as a country to block access to Facebook and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Twitter and other social media sites um that people may
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: not have been interested in have they not tried to
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: block it? Prompted millions of people UH to download VP
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and software just so they could get access to these sites.
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  Speaker 1: So it's the whole idea of the forbidden fruit. It's
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: like that that UM Chief Wigham telling Ralph to stay
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: out of his forbidden closet of mystery. It's like, why
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: are you so fascinated with whatever is in my forbidden
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: closet of mystery? That's definitely part of it. It's like,
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  Speaker 1: if you're saying no, you're not allowed to see this,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you're basically saying, do everything you can to see what
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep you from seeing. UM. And just
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: like how how Streisand's UM house photo that only be
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  Speaker 1: downloaded six times prior to the lawsuit and then went
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  Speaker 1: up to four thousand times right after. UM. That's just
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  Speaker 1: it's just part and parcel with it. If you leave
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: it alone. I don't know about China and news of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: democracies and what democracies are doing, that might be an exception,
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  Speaker 1: but typically if you leave whatever you're trying to censor alone,
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  Speaker 1: apparently that will that will attract less attention to it
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: than than saying like, you're not allowed to hear this.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: This is censored. Yeah, I mean, it's also the conundrum
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that every parent faces every day that their kid grows up.
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  Speaker 1: Is like everything from curse words like not making a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: big deal about it, to whatever they're watching and stuff
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  Speaker 1: like that. It's just you know, it's like, well maybe
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: if we don't make a big deal out of it,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it's not going to be a big deal. Yes, there
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: is a giant bird and he's yellow and he loves you,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: but you cannot see him. You're not allowed to watch that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: All right. We're gonna take a break and come back
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and talk about a few other versions of the Strisand
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  Speaker 1: effect over the years right after this. So I just
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: want to point out if you're not gonna laugh at
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: my jokes today, I'll laugh at my own jokes. I'll
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: be over. Yeah, the big bird joke was a good one,
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  Speaker 1: all right. So, um, there's a pair of researchers Sue
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Curry Jensen and Brian Martin, and together they kind of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: created this paper partially on the Streisand effect, and they
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: gave some other examples, like you know, in addition to
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Barber Streisand and China um banning Twitter and Facebook Um,
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  Speaker 1: some other other groups have have famously, you know, tried
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  Speaker 1: to censor things and it's blown up in their face.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And one of them was I don't remember where we
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: talked about it before, but the Mick Libel case, we
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: definitely have mentioned it before. Yeah, this was McDonald's in
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the nineties. They sued a couple of volunteers from London
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: green Peace because they had put out a pamphlet called
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with McDonald's and this, you know, this is
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a street pamphlet. It wasn't even online. I mean, may
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: have been at some point, but this is the nineties,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: so you know how pamphlets, it's not like that goes wide. Um,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: they were just pamphlets and they until they got sued
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and the British press got ahold of it, called it,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, McLibel, and it became the longest running
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: civil trial in the history of Britain. And they lost
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that one too, So it's they didn't get the message
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: or I guess when was Streisand's was that in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: eighties Streisan No Streisand's was two thousand three because it
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: was really internet project. Yeah, this proceeded Barbara Streisand so
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  Speaker 1: she hadn't take a note from McDonald's maybe don't bring
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  Speaker 1: the lawsuit, No, because I mean the fact that it
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  Speaker 1: was the longest running civil trial. The press stays interested
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  Speaker 1: in that kind of thing, so pretty frequently they would
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: interview the plaintiffs or the defendants in the case and
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  Speaker 1: they would just give them this big microphone to talk
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  Speaker 1: about all the horrible things McDonald's was doing. It was
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a It was a bad move on McDonald's part, for sure. Um.
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  Speaker 1: There was also one, as far as food goes, a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: schoolgirl in Scotland named Martha Payne who was nine at
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the time, back in two thousand twelve, and she sounds
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: like one of the cooler nine year olds I've ever
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  Speaker 1: heard of. She had a food blog, but her food
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: blog was about how terrible the food was at her school,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: in her cafeteria, and so she would take pictures of
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  Speaker 1: her school lunch and posted a picture on her blog
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  Speaker 1: and talk about the food and all that. And I
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: guess Jamie Oliver, who's a well known food guy and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: food communicator, if there is such a thing. Sure, Um, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So Jamie Oliver tweeted about it and there was a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of traffic to her blog, and the local school
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  Speaker 1: board said, oh, we we can't have this. She's gonna
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  Speaker 1: make us look dumb, so let's just ban her from
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  Speaker 1: taking photos in school of her food. Yeah, that didn't
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: work out. That blew up in their face as well,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: because then what you end up being accused of is
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: like squashing the voice of a child. Um. Kind of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: like what happened recently here in Georgia when that high
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: school girl took a picture of her crowded school without masks,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and they suspended her for like a day. And then
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: we're like, uh, never mind, you can. I guess we
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: shouldn't try and squash health whistleblowers in high school their
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Torrian sound. Yeah, so they let her back in school too,
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  Speaker 1: They did. It was it was, it was rough, just
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  Speaker 1: a very idea that they suspended her for. That is
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  Speaker 1: really disappointing. What's even more disappointing, though, is that um
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that the two researchers I mentioned early or um they
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: basically said, you know, there's some really great famous cases
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  Speaker 1: about this streisand effect happening, but way more often than not,
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  Speaker 1: the sensors who are working to censor things, um are
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  Speaker 1: they do? They they censor and they like the streisand
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  Speaker 1: effect doesn't happen. It's much more the exception than the rule.
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  Speaker 1: And that even when UM there is a streisand effect
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  Speaker 1: to it. There's kind of a playbook what they call
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: outrage management UM that's used to kind of keep the
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  Speaker 1: public outcry against whatever was discovered or the censorship that
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: was discovered in in order in manageable, I guess, which
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: hence the name. Yeah, it's pretty scuzzy, uh to see
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: what they do, but it's sort of right out of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the playbook that you would expect. Oh, it all sounds
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: It sounds very familiar, doesn't it. Yeah, very Bynesian. And
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: plus it's just the kind of thing you see all
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the time. You know, they trying to cover up or
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: they devalue the target, or they basically lie about it
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  Speaker 1: and reinterpret it. UM. They Another one is use official
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: channels to give an appearance of justice, right and then
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: intimidate people. So they gave in this In this article,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Jansen and Martin gave an example of the Nazis and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: their youthan Asia making air quotes everybody program of people
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: with disabilities, and that they used all five methods of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that UM. They hid the program from the public. That's
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: number one. Um, they stigmatized people with disabilities as a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: burden for society. That's devaluing the target. They lied about
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the events, so that's reinterpreting it. Anybody who had a question,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: like a parent of the victim, that kind of thing,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they would just out and out say, oh, no, they
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: died of you know this other this other disease or
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: from natural causes or something. They also intimidated parents who
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: would not back down into saying, hey, you want to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: lose the rest of your kids, no, well, then be quiet.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And then they also allowed for formal complaints to be levied. Um.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: But of course they never went anywhere, so it gave
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the appearance of using official channels for justice. So leave
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: it to the Nazis to check off all five of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: those scuzzie boxes. Stupid Nazis. Yeah. I think one of
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: my favorite cases was when Al Franken, previous to being
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a senator, wrote that book Lies and the lying liars
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: who tell them colon a fair and balanced to look
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: at the right and and Fox News took him to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: court and says, wait a minute, that's our term fair
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and balance. That's intellectual property and the judge said, no,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: those are just two words that are pretty commonly used. Uh,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you don't own them. And Al Franken, I imagine as
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: soon as he heard that Fox News was suing him,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: was like hit the roof and was like sweet because
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: all that did was bring just tons and tons of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: pressed to his new book it was being launched. Yeah,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and I guess it shot right onto the best seller
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: list right after that too. So maybe Fox News will
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: come and sue us because of our book. Maybe we
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: should change the title the Stuff you should Know an
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: incomplete compendium of mostly interesting, fair and balanced things. Can
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you believe this title? And then maybe we could get
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: taken the court and get a lot of publicity out
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of it. That'd be wonderful, or chuck, if everybody just
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: went and bought our book, which you can pre order
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: now anywhere books are available, Um, that would have the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: same effect without us having to go through the problem
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: being sued. That'd be great too, or having to go
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: back and retitle the things you got anything else? I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: don't have anything else. Beautiful segue by the way, nice plug. Uh,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: And since we don't have anything else and we're down
• 13:48
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