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Comment by ultimoo | Hacker News Reader

https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850100381560578052

"well now on CNN! and we gained 17000 followers in less than 30 minutes. Thank you CBP/Trump"

I just learnt about the Streisand Effect this afternoon -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Yep, try and sue or suppress someone and you run a real risk of having it blow up on you, defeating your intent to keep it quiet. Sometimes the best action is to do nothing, and let it blow over.

I wish it worked the way you said, but the Streisand Effect is a myth. If you've worked in customer service, public relations, as a manager, you know that 99% of the time when something is suppressed the problem goes away.

It's just as true from the opposite point of view. If you're a customer, client, or user, and your complaint or comment is suppressed, 99% of the time you do nothing or it goes nowhere.

Once in a long while, something blows up but it's not the rule.

There's also the effect where the general public never notices the 99% that are suppressed, so the counter-examples to the streisand effect are hidden

So what you're saying is that the Streisand Effect is not a myth, it's just a rare occurence.

I believe the definition of Streisand effect requires an addendum stating that it applies only when a large audience is involved.

Customers or clients are individuals who're bereft of the social connections that'd provide solidarity and encourage them to follow-up on their complaints unlike that provided by a larger audience. Furthermore , clients are just tired of dealing with what is often BS from the customer-care dept. As they try to suppress the complaint and therefore prefer to take the easier route which is often to just switch their services. Furthermore, I'm not even considering perseverant personalities who burn brighter when someone tries to suppress the bonfire by blowing at it.

Wouldn't the Streisand Effect require that the government asked twitter to shut the account down, rather than just reveal the identity? What suppression is happening here (beyond wild speculation)?

Striesand Effect is about censorship/exposure and is not relevant to this case which is about seeking the identity of the poster presumably because they are a federal employee. It doesn't seem like they're trying to do anything quietly, just get information for now.

Are you being sarcastic? They weren't going to find out who it is and sit on their hands. They would have fired them.

Trump has countless vocal detractors. Trying to silence a solitary one seems pointless, though I wouldn't entirely put that past this administration.

Am I misreading Streisand effect? Trying to prevent a fact from becoming well known causes it to become well known. The general message "Trump does bad things" is not a secret.

is it pointless? It sends a message that others that do this WILL be unmasked, fired, and possibly have their lives ruined.

fewer people will do this if they see that there are real consequences to dissent.

Suppose that were true. Then they would want to conduct this as publicly and noisily as possible in order to propagate that fear. Which would be counter to what Streisand Effect suggests.

You'd want to do this loudly enough that other dissidents hear and are afraid but not so loudly that other citizens get word and potentially join the dissidents' side. You don't want a public lawsuit. You want Twitter to silently hand over the data and for the last tweet from the account to be "Got fired today :(".

The core idea of the Streisand effect is when someone's response to criticism backfires and brings much more publicity to the criticism.

I guess if you truly believe the government was "just asking questions" or honestly investigating a crime without the underlying motive of hushing a pesky critic, then it wouldn't be an example of the Streisand effect.

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