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The Streisand effect is a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized.

Examples of such attempts include censoring a photograph, a number, a file, or a website (for example via a cease-and-desist letter).

Instead of being suppressed, the information quickly receives extensive publicity, often being widely mirrored across the Internet, or distributed on file-sharing networks.[1][2] Mike Masnick said he jokingly coined the term in January 2005 “to describe [this] increasingly common phenomenon”,[3] the name being taken from a 2003 incident in which the singer Barbra Streisand attempted to use legal process to preserve her privacy, only to see the matter become far more prominent as a result.