Streisand effect
US/ˈstɹaɪ.sænd əˌfɛkt/
Streisand effect noun: a phenomenon in which attempting to suppress an item of information attracts even more unwanted attention, thus furthering its dissemination.
Noun
Streisand effect (plural Streisand effects)
- A phenomenon in which attempting to suppress an item of information attracts even more unwanted attention, thus furthering its dissemination.
- No matter how effective your rebuttal may seem to be to you, a response will "bump" the problem into greater prominence and relevance in the search engine results, which then turns your headache into a migraine. This is doubly dangerous since "bumping" the negative information potentially...2009, John W. Dozier, Sue Scheff, Google Bomb: The Untold Story of the $11.3M Verdict That Changed the Way We Use the Internet, HCI, →ISBN, page 40
- Say you discover that people aren't just talking about you, they're bashing you. Should you step in and try to stop them? Again, the answer is absolutely no! Leave them alone – you'll only make the problems worse and create a Streisand Effect if you try to hush them up.2009, Kyle Lacy, Twitter Marketing For Dummies, For Dummies, →ISBN, page 215
Examples of Streisand effect in a sentence
- This is doubly dangerous since "bumping" the negative information potentially introduces the "Streisand Effect" into the equation, which is something to avoid if at all possible.2009, John W. Dozier, Sue Scheff, Google Bomb: The Untold Story of the $11.3M Verdict That Changed the Way We Use the Internet, HCI, →ISBN...
- But that hasn't stopped Beck's lawyers from trying to shut down the site -- resulting in more blowback and another manifestation of the dreaded Streisand Effect!2009 September 11, Jim Emerson, “Teaching the controversy”, Scanners, in Chicago Sun-Times, archived from the original on 15 Sep 2009:
- Though, the action of the US government was intended to suppress the leaks, the ‘Streisand effect’ made sure that the outcome was exactly the opposite.2010 December 17, K Vaidya Nathan, “Beware the Streisand effect”, in The Indian Express, The Indian Express Limited, retrieved 29 Oct 2012:
Forms of Streisand effect
| plural | Streisand effects |
|---|
Origin of Streisand effect
Coined by Mike Masnick in 2005, after a 2003 incident in which singer Barbra Streisand attempted to have a picture of her house removed from a public collection of 12,000 images documenting coastal erosion in California.
Words formed from Streisand effect
Questions about Streisand effect
- What does Streisand effect mean?
- Streisand effect means a phenomenon in which attempting to suppress an item of information attracts even more unwanted attention, thus furthering its dissemination.
- How do you use Streisand effect in a sentence?
- This is doubly dangerous since "bumping" the negative information potentially introduces the "Streisand Effect" into the equation, which is something to avoid if at all possible.
- What part of speech is Streisand effect?
- Streisand effect is a noun.
- How do you pronounce Streisand effect?
- Streisand effect is pronounced /ˈstɹaɪ.sænd əˌfɛkt/ (US).
- What is the plural of Streisand effect?
- The plural of Streisand effect is Streisand effects.
Words near Streisand effect in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Streisand effect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-Streisand effect.ogg.
Cite this entry: “Streisand effect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/streisand_effect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.