“PLEASE DON’T THROW ME IN THE BRIAR PATCH”

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Donald Trump appointed Brendan Carr as Chairman of the FCC to “Control and regulate TV broadcasting in the US”.

Last week, Stephen Colbert wanted Congressman James Talarico on his show.

Talarico looks capable of turning Texas from a Republican state to a Democrat state.

This is exactly the sort of thing Trump appointed Carr to shut down.

Carr warned Colbert not to broadcast the interview.

So that night, in his introduction, Colbert told the TV audience that they wouldn’t be able to see the planned interview with James Talarico on his show.

But, he said, Brendan Carr only controlled broadcast TV, not online media.

So Colbert would be interviewing Talarico and, although you couldn’t watch it on the TV show, you could still watch it online.

And an amazing thing happened.

2.3 million people watched Colbert’s TV show as usual, but another 30 million people watched him interview Talarico on YouTube, on Facebook, on X, and on TikTok.

James Talarico ran the interview himself online, under the heading: “The interview Donald Trump doesn’t want you to see” and got $2.5 million in donations.

It seems nothing is as attractive as something we’re banned from watching.

This is known as ‘The Streisand Effect’.

In 2004, California Coastal Records put 12,000 aerial photographs online.

One of the pictures was ‘Image 3850’ which had been clicked on just 4 times.

Unfortunately, one of the 4 people who clicked on it was Barbra Streisand, who owned the house there.

She sued the photographer for $50 million for ‘invasion of privacy’.

It immediately made all the papers, and suddenly everyone wanted to see Barbra Streisand’s house.

A million people clicked on the image, people who otherwise wouldn’t even have known it was there.

She got exactly the opposite of the effect she wanted, and she lost the case.

‘The Streisand Effect’ is what happens when you try to silence someone and end up giving them more publicity.

Another example was Uber.

In 2012, Uber launched in London, they had just 50 drivers and 3 office staff, no one had even heard of Uber.

Except black-cab drivers, they were furious that their passengers could book an Uber on their mobile, cheaper than a black cab.

They wanted Uber banned, so they protested.

On June 11th 2014, black-cabs blocked the streets of central London: Trafalgar Square, Houses of Parliament, Piccadilly, all blocked solid.

It was all over the TV news, and radio, and every newspaper.

This meant that Londoners became aware of Uber as a new way of getting cabs that you could book on your mobile and they were cheaper than black cabs.

Uber suddenly had more free advertising than they could possibly afford to buy.

People that had never even heard of Uber wanted to switch to this new service.

Uber had an 850% increase in business, grew to 25,000 drivers and 100 office staff in London alone, then opened in another 15 UK cities.

All because of the publicity they got from someone trying to shut them down.

I’m as susceptible as anyone to doing exactly what I’m told NOT to do.

I bought a copy of a book by Sarah Wynne-Williams: “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism”.

What made me buy it?

I saw an article headed: ‘The book Mark Zuckerberg is trying to ban”.

And there’s nothing more guaranteed to make me want to want to do something than someone trying to ban me from doing it.

So I went online and bought a copy, so did 150,000 other people.

Sometimes the best publicity you can have is someone trying to stop you doing something.