The Streisand effect, coined by Mike Masnick of Techdirt in 2005, is an example of psychological reactance. Once people are aware something is being kept from them, their motivation to access and spread the information is increased. The effect is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose 2003 attempt to suppress photographs of her residence in Malibu, California, inadvertently drew further public attention to it. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters to suppress numbers, files, and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.

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