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The phenomenon of the 'Streisand Effect' refers to any attempt to hide or censor information, with the unintended consequence that exactly this information will be spread wide and far. The term came into existence through Mike Masnick (CEO Techdirt) when he wrote an article in 2003 about an incident that involved the popstar and actress Barbara Streisand.

What is The 'Streisand Effect'?What is The 'Streisand Effect'?

Streisand filed a lawsuit against a photographer who took an aerial photograph of her property in Malibu, California. He published it together with thousands of other pictures on a website; the purpose was not to show prominent figures' properties, no. The pictures posted had to do with coastal erosion in California, which was depicted in all those photos, including the one of Barbara Streisand's property.

Streisand sued the photographer; however, at this point, the photograph had barely been seen by anyone. This changed quickly: The new attention due to the legal action led to hundreds of thousands of views. Thus, the term 'Streisand Effect' was created -by trying to censor information, you will get, in a lot of cases, not the result you hoped for.

The phenomenon is based on the principle of reactance, a psychological theory from the 20th century: If people feel that you are censoring information, when they feel their very own freedom is affected or even threatened, they will resist. They will try to reclaim this very freedom.

Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you to not do this, not do that… What did you do?!

Historical ExamplesHistorical Examples

In history, we find a lot of examples in which this effect led to converse results after certain instances of government overreach. When reading about them, as I am sure you already have in the past, you will quickly understand where we are going…

• Prohibition era in the United States: In 1920, the U.S. Government banned the sale of alcohol. In the following years, this ban led to the rise of illegal production and the black market on which alcohol was sold. But not just that, even the alcohol demand itself went up. Suddenly, people who never drank alcohol before were looking to get their hands on this (now forbidden) product.
• The war on drugs: A similar case is the war on drugs which has been happening for decades worldwide, but especially in the Americas. Same as in the prohibition era, the illegal drug trade was born through hard restrictions on such substances. The black market that was created due to it is nowadays out of control, claiming thousands of lives.
• File Sharing: A more modern example of the Streisand Effect is Napster. Napster was the first prominent File-Sharing service that enabled people worldwide to download music protected by copyright, via a peer-to-peer network. In 2001, it was shut down by a court order. The result? You guessed right: Several other P2P-platforms took its place, including Limewire, eMule, and BitTorrent.
• China and their firewall: In communist China, access to free information is not necessarily the favorite of the ruling Communist Party. What is known as 'The Great Firewall Of China', a euphemism for rigid censorship of social networks and search engines, led to the usage of virtual private networks (VPNs) among the citizens. With the help of VPNs, Chinese citizens are still able to access blocked websites and content that was censored by government restrictions.

And now, ask yourself: What could possibly happen when governments worldwide suddenly make privacy coins illegal?

If governments declare the usage, including buying/selling and ownership, of privacy-related coins and tokens as illegal, this will probably lead to more media coverage, an increased interest among the general public, and thus, an increased adoption of those privacy solutions.

The adoption would be accelerated, not slowed down or even shut down. It would be seen as government overreach, as a form of censorship, and an unnecessary measure against a fundamental human right.

Even people who had never heard about Monero (XMR) & Co. before could be compelled to research those now-forbidden tools, only to realize that they are actually really useful. They might use it just out of protest, as an act of rebellion, or simply because they finally realize that they actually need privacy coins.

Due to increased demand, it might also be possible that the creators of such privacy solutions become more sophisticated, creating even more elaborate and secure technologies that make it ever more difficult for authorities to have any control over it.

Human Desire For Autonomy Will PrevailHuman Desire For Autonomy Will Prevail

Financial privacy and people developing solutions in this sector will prevail. You can not suppress the human desire for autonomy, at least not of anyone and not for ever.

Our technology is adapting faster than those crooks can blink, they couldn't possibly regulate it at the same pace.

Meanwhile, public awareness is growing, because CBDCs and other surveillance mechanisms are peddled to them 24/7, and at some point a critical amount of people will search for alternatives – guess what they will end up with? Right, XMR.