The Streisand Effect

Obviously I've posted about this a lot on the fediverse recently. I'm not trying to rub salt in the wound, but I wanted to make a post about it on my main blog in order to compile all of my arguments and to hopefully make a statement that the radqueer community at large can understand and agree with. What am I talking about? The Streisand Effect and how it relates to the way antis target our communities.

First off, in case you are unfamiliar with what The Streisand Effect is, I'll give a quick summary. The Streisand Effect is the phenomenon in which, when someone releases information about a subject, the attempt to get said information censored results in the content becoming more widespread, resulting in more people being aware of it than would've in the first case. The Wikipedia article for it goes into more depth and lists sources as well. The Streisand Effect gets its name from an incident where a photographer took photos of Barbra Streisand's house, and she attempted to get those photos removed. However, instead of the intended effect of people no longer knowing what her house looked like, this brought more attention towards the situation, and once those photos were reuploaded, it drew widespread attention that they hadn't in the first place. In short, because Streisand attempted to censor public information about her, it backfired and resulted in the situation becoming worse. Instead of only a few people knowing this picture existed, now everyone did. Wikipedia chalks this phenomenon up to "an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, they are significantly more motivated to acquire and spread it." Here's a quote from Barbra Streisand about the incidient:

My issue was never with the photo ... it was only about the use of my name attached to the photo. I felt I was standing up for a principle, but in retrospect, it was a mistake. I also assumed that my lawyer had done exactly as I wished and simply asked to take my name off the photo.

We'll come back to that later, but I want you to remember it. 

I am going to be making a lot of different points with this post, as the situation at large is complex. I am talking about the Katie Cruz x Sly Boy situation. Once again, I am not trying to rub salt in Katie's wound, but I want others to read this post and think about it if a situation like this ever comes to their doorstep. If you don't know, the situation I am referring to is one where a YouTuber by the name of Sly Boy made videos defaming and doxxing Katie Cruz, a MAP activist. As any reasonable person would, Cruz tried to get these videos taken down. I have done similar things as well, and am not blaming her for this. But the unintended consequence of this was that, after SB had posted a few more videos, he started to double down on the situation in response to the censorship Cruz was attempting to do. This started The Streisand Effect phenomenon, and as of typing this, his latest video on Cruz is his most popular on his entire YouTube channel, earning 820K views in a matter of 3 days. His next most popular video only has 277K views, and it has been up for 10 months. This situation has also earned him tens of thousands of subscribers.

I could stop this post right here, that alone should tell you that no one is immune to The Streisand Effect. If Katie Cruz hadn't attempted to take the videos down in the first place, then she would've only had views up in the high ten thousands. But the attempt to censor it caused it to skyrocket, making the situation go completely out of control. Again, this was a reasonable thing for Cruz to do, I am not strictly criticizing that, rather, I am trying to make a point that if this happens to you, do not attempt to censor the information. If you do, you are only going to create the inevitable possibility that it will Streisand Effect and then you'll be in a worse place than where you started.

Katie Cruz's ultimate goal is to get Sly Boy's YouTube channel taken down completely. But the way things are going I see two possible outcomes from this. 1. If this doesn't happen then, in response to seeing how many views he's gotten, he will double down on this content style and post about more people in the MAP community. And, 2. If this does happen, then he will reupload the videos somewhere else. He mentioned trying to use Free Speech Tube, as well as trying to get bigger YouTubers such as MoistCr1TiKaL/penguinz0 to cover the situation. The aforementioned YouTuber averages 2M+ views per video, so if this happens the Streisand Effect will continue to juggernaut, bringing even more attention to the situation. 

As of writing this this has also earned a dedicated Soyjak Party thread on Katie Cruz and on her Map Merch Shop, and it has also spawned a Kiwifarms discussion. So at this point this has become bigger than Sly Boy and Katie, even if Katie follows through attempting to sue him, there isn't much she's gonna be able to do once anonymous nazis from those sites start to take more of an interest.

So, as a reminder kids, if someone makes a video about you online, as much as it may suck, one of the worst things you can do is get it taken down. If this happens then the odds are high that it will get reuploaded and more attention will be brought to it, putting you in a worse off situation than you would've been if you had just left it alone. The Streisand Effect exists for a reason. It wasn't just some one off thing that happened with Barbra Streisand, it is a predictable, psychologically-understood phenomenon that can happen when private information made public is being taken down. If you feel like you are doing this as a matter of principle, like it is your duty to, remember that Barbra Streisand herself said the same thing, and that, in hindsight, she realized it was a mistake. If you do find yourself in a scenario like this, you can't go back in time to change things, the only thing you can do is stop escalating to get it from becoming even bigger.

Another thing you should avoid doing is publicizing spats like these. We were taught in school that people only bully others because they want to get a reaction out of them. Whether or not that is true, it should come as no surprise that when you respond to shit that antis say about you, they're going to want to do it more. Especially because public drama and feuds earn so much attention from fans. Just look at literally any rap beef out there, the public eats that stuff up. So if you respond to antis, they will reply back and make things even worse for you. I know because I've been in that scenario. I am not speaking out of a place of intellectual superiority as it may sound like, rather, I am speaking out of experience. It is not worth it to give antis even the time of day. It is a waste of your own precious time that you should be spending on more worthwhile things, like building up your community. I've spent a lot of time in the illusion thinking that the best way to help the radqueer cause is by fighting off antis online, but I now know that the best thing you can do is build real community.

Anyways, well, what should you do then? If you do leave these people alone, then it may reinforce the idea that they can do this and get away with it. You should stand up for yourself, right? Let them know that you're not just gonna take shit. All in all, I think it's important, when doing this, to analyze the pros and cons. For starters, who are you interacting with? Is it some rando leftist on Bluesky? If so then bad stuff probably won't happen. Is it some right winger YouTuber that constantly posts about drama and people they find gross? Probably not a good idea. I usually don't talk about sites like Soyjak Party because I've seen the way they react to people talking ill about them. Is it tempting to tell them off? Yes. But will doing so create a realistic possibility that bad shit will happen to not only me, but the people in my community? Yes yes yes. Usually when antis piss me off I don't respond to them directly, I'll make a blog post or something about it. Not for the purpose of telling them off, but to let my community know that they're not alone, and that we can stand up to these people by standing with our community, not by trying to fight an internet argument on the frontlines by ourselves.

What's ended up happening here is not only Katie Cruz putting herself in more danger, but others as well. Of course, she is not to blame for this, it is the nazis and right wingers who are, but if they started the fire, then it's appropriate to say Cruz threw more wood into it, making the flame bigger and more dangerous. And now others are getting burned. Now that antis are more aware of MAP Merch Shop, they might go after other vendors. Now that we got Sly Boy posting over and over again about Cruz, we have almost a million people with eyes on the MAP movement. I will talk more about that it a bit, as I believe more eyes on the movement is praxis, but as it currently stands, most people on pedi don't want that attention. And the best thing we can do is respect their wishes, not forcing them into situations that make them uncomfortable.

Activists in our communities are influencers. We are role models. People look up to us, and when they see us do something they think that's what they should be doing too. No one should have to shoulder a responsibility like this, it is very stressful, but we do anyways. And it means everything we do needs to be extremely calculated. We need to consider how people are going to react to it, we need to consider how that's going to influence their own behaviors, and we need to consider how what we do is going to affect others. When you choose to become an activist, this is a responsibility you choose to take on. Us activists should be inspiring our community to stop hiding and to come together in-person. At the end of the day, that is what is going to further our movement, not getting involved in flamewars online.

In order for the radqueer movement to succeed, our people need to stop hiding. This may seem antithetical to what I've been saying, but there is a difference. For starters, I'm analyzing this situation from Katie's perspective, with her goals in mind. She is attempting to get this information removed in order to protect herself and others from antis, but what she is doing, in actuality, is going against that. And the second difference is that our community becoming recognized doesn't need to come at the expense of people on YouTube making callout videos about us. Sure, that will come in time, but the way this situation is going, these people are going to be making videos about each person on here who they view as a threat, and without the proper community in place, we won't be able to stand up to it.

We need to be building real community. Whenever something like this happens, anything that brings even a sliver of light onto pedi, people freak out. Why? Because they view pedi as something secretive, something you whisper about, like a dark web site. People use it to share illegal content, for whatever reason, and talk about how much they love CP and fucking kids and whatnot. And then they get scared when the idea of the feds looking into the network gets brought up. This is not what pedi should be used for. People just talk about gooning and their sessions in bio, but where is this going to get us as a community? People want to be accepted by society, but at the same time they take the gift that is a global social media community for MAPs and treat it like it's a dark web site for gooning to CP. We need to start treating pedi for what it really is, and that is a way for people like us to build community, to get together in real life and be able to stand up against bullies like Sly Boy. But the way things are now, even the smallest bit of attention gets people scared, and they end up leaving pedi because they're worried about antis and cops.

Something that most people don't want to acknowledge is that our community is never going to get anywhere without some sacrifices. I would like to tell you that someday MAPs will be accepted, and along the way no one will get doxxed, hurt, or arrested, but that is not the reality. We would not have gay rights today if the people throwing bricks at cops didn't get arrested back at Stonewall. And people shouldn't be going out of their way to put themselves in harm's way, I believe we should do everything we can to prevent that, but, to put it bluntly, people here need to have thicker skin and be able to take it when people come at them. We need a change of attitude in the culture of this community. We should be praising people who are apologetically themselves, but who do so safely. We should be encouraging that people stand their ground when trouble comes our way, and not run away. We should put the message out there that using pedi like it's a darkweb site won't help the movement in the long run. Pedi isn't some secret private place for you to do illegal stuff, it's a public social media sphere that anyone can look into. The feds can, vigilantes can. Hell, even instance admins can read your "private" DMs. People get scared when "the feds investigate fedi!" well, news flash, the Katie Cruz x Sly Boy situation isn't bringing in any feds that weren't already spying on the websites. 

I made a post recently about being doxxed and how that changed my life for the better, I think this is a message we should be spreading across MAP spaces as a whole. Being doxxed is bad, obviously, but the things that can come from it, such as no longer having to hide who you are and being able to meet up with people IRL easier, are good. We need more people to do this and to form in-person communities. That way when antis do come to pedi and start shit, we can have people who can protect us. I encourage you to read my blog post about getting doxxed in full.

As a call to action, I think the people in the radqueer community need to form a stronger community. Be more real about who you are, say the city you live in so that you can meet up with people. But be careful as to not share sensitive info like your address or where you work, as those are unnecessary to give out and just put a target on your back. All in all, the nuances to what you should be public about versus what you should hide are complex, but the end goal is to form a real community and to stop hiding. We are queer people who deserve these things and we should start acting like it. Wear a MAP pride pin, or a zoo pride bracelet. Put your nearest major city in bio. Put the fact that you're radqueer on your social media page or something. And when people try to dox or harass you, stand your ground. Don't let them scare you. You have people you can stand with that will protect you.

We will win eventually, but we aren't going to win by YouTube takedown campaigns. When we win, it'll be because we have a community that can stand together and not fall down when we get pushed.