What is the Streisand effect and why is it called that (2 photos)
The term "Streisand effect" is most often used in a situation when a person tries to hide something from the public, thereby only drawing more attention to it. As you might guess from the title, the story is connected with Barbra Streisand. 
The concept appeared in English dictionaries in 2005. The situation that served as the reason for its appearance occurred in 2002. At that time, photographer Kenneth Adelman was photographing the California coastline as part of the government project "California Coastal Records Project", which studied coastal erosion. The site published more than 12 thousand photos of the coastal area. One of the photos showed the mansion of the star Streisand. In 2003, Barbra filed a lawsuit demanding compensation for moral damages and a ban on the distribution of the photo, which showed her house. The artist considered this a violation of her privacy and a threat to her safety.
The court rejected the claim. And if before the lawsuit was filed, the photo was downloaded only 6 times (two of which were by lawyers), then after the trial, it was viewed by about half a million users in two weeks. So it turned out that, by wanting to hide information from the public eye, Streisand herself contributed to as many people as possible learning about it and seeing this photo. Not only was the star denied a lawsuit, but she was also required to pay the defendant photographer's legal costs, which amounted to $150,000. 
Such stories happen often. For example, the "Streisand effect" worked with Beyoncé. In 2013, the singer's lawyer demanded that one of the news outlets remove unsuccessful photos of the singer from the portal, but in response to this, the publication only released a new article with the headline "Beyoncé's lawyer does not want you to see her "unflattering" photos", and duplicated those very photos. Many media outlets then wrote about this scandal, which only attracted even more attention to the photos that Beyoncé sought to hide.
