欲盖弥彰的 Streisand Effect（史翠珊效应）& Outrage Management（公愤管理）
Original 心理探寻 Psychology心理探寻 1 week ago
The rich and powerful bullies of the world — governments, corporations, celebrities, etc. — have lots of creative ways to control the public's access to information, especially when that information makes them look bad: intimidation, bans, bribery or straight-up censorship. But every once in a while, an especially clumsy censorship effort backfires and the situation goes from bad to much, much worse.
世界上有钱有权的那些坏蛋——政府、企业、名人等，有许许多多控制大众信息获取渠道的方法，尤其当这些信息对他们不利时。这些方法包括：恐吓、禁令、贿赂，或审查。但时不时，某个比较拙劣的审查行为会适得其反，让情形愈加恶化。
Take the case of Barbra Streisand, award-winning actress, singer and owner of a sprawling mega-mansion near the wealthy coastal enclave of Malibu, California. Back in 2003, Streisand sued a photographer named Kenneth Adelman because he refused to delete a photo of her Malibu mansion from an online project that tracked erosion on the California coastline. Adelman wasn't a paparazzo trying to snag a shot of Babs in her bathing suit. He was documenting an important environmental issue.
比如芭芭拉·史翠珊。她是一位曾荣获奖项的演员和歌手，同时也在加利福尼亚马里布富豪区拥有一栋超大豪华别墅。2003年，史翠珊起诉了一位名为 Kenneth Adelman 的摄影师，因为在这位摄影师在一项追踪加利福尼亚海岸线秦时情况的网上项目中拍摄到了史翠珊的豪宅，而且拒绝删除。Adelman 并非是一个试图偷拍芭芭拉身穿泳装照的狗仔记者，他不过是在记录一项重要的环境问题。
Streisand obviously felt that her privacy had been violated, so she took Adelman to court for $50 million in damages. The irony was that before Streisand took Adelman to court, the online image of her house had been downloaded a grand total of six times, twice by her own lawyers. But after the media caught wind of Babs' outrageous $50 million lawsuit, the image was downloaded 420,000 times in just a month and publicized around the world. (For an added kick in the teeth, the judge dismissed the case.)
史翠珊明显感到她的隐私被侵犯了，所以她起诉 Adelman，要求5000万美元赔偿。而讽刺之处在于，在史翠珊起诉 Adelman之前，网上这张她豪宅的照片只有6次下载量，其中两次是她自己的律师下载的。但自从媒体获知她这场索赔额高达5000万美元的诉讼后，图片下载量在一个月内就飙升到42万次，而且在全球范围内得以传播。（更糟糕的是，法官还拒绝受理了该案件。）
Streisand wasn't the first would-be censor to get burned by her own attempt to repress information, but her name became indelibly attached to the phenomena when the TechDirt blogger Mike Masnick jokingly labeled the backfire the "Streisand effect."
史翠珊并不是首个因想要压制信息，却适得其反、引火上身之人，但在 TechDirt 博主 Mike Masnick 戏谑地将这一后果称为“史翠珊效应”后，她的名字就牢牢地和这一现象关联在了一起。
"Nobody had paid much attention to the whole thing until the lawsuit, which I'm sure Streisand wishes she had never undertaken," says Sue Curry Jansen, professor emeritus of media and communications at Muhlenberg College, who co-authored a 2015 paper about the curious dynamics of the Streisand effect.
“在这个诉讼之前，没有人对这整件事情给予很大关注。我相信史翠珊现在会但愿当初自己没提起这场诉讼。”穆伦堡学院媒体与通信专业荣誉退休教授 Sue Curry Jansen说道。他曾在2015年与他人合著了一篇关于史翠珊效应独特运作原理的论文。
The Streisand effect is a product of public outrage and blowback over perceived censorship or any attempt by someone with power to repress free speech. As Streisand's lawsuit shows, a lot of supposedly "dangerous" information wouldn't likely draw much attention if left uncensored, but the very act of trying to repress it creates public outrage, which ends up shining a far brighter light on the information in the process. Not to mention that people are naturally curious about anything that is being covered-up or attempted to be suppressed. "Why is this information being hidden?" we wonder.
史翠珊效应的产生原因，是对于所察觉到的审查行为，或者任何有权力之人试图压制自由言论的行为，公众所产生的民愤（公众愤怒）以及反抗。正如史翠珊的诉讼事件所显示的，一些被视为“危险”的信息，如果不去审查监管，可能并不会吸引多少关注，但恰恰是“试图压制它”这一行为本身，创造了民愤，这就导致在这一过程中为这一信息带来了更大的曝光度。更不要说人们天生就对被掩盖或试图被压制的东西感兴趣。“为什么这一信息要被掩盖？”我们会好奇。
It's also been shown that banning books or blocking access to certain websites only serves to increase public demand for the censored information. One study from 2018 found that China's attempts to block access to sites like Twitter and Facebook prompted millions of otherwise apolitical citizens to download VPN software to evade the censors and access the sites.
另外也有证据显示，禁止一些书籍，或者阻止对一些网站的访问，只会推升公众对所禁信息的需求。2018年的一项研究发现，中国对诸如 Twitter 和 Facebook的禁止，促使数百万本来不关心政治的中国公民开始下载VPN软件，打破封锁，访问这些网站。
Poetic Justice in Action
那些“报应终不爽”的“诗性正义”实例
In their paper, Jansen and her co-author Brian Martin of the University of Wollongong in Australia highlight some truly shining examples of the Streisand effect at work, from global corporations to grade-school cafeterias:
在他们的论文中，澳大利亚伍伦贡大学Jansen 和 Brian martin提到了一些关于史翠珊效应的典型例子，这些例子涵盖范围从全球企业到小学餐厅不等。
The fast food giant McDonald's made a huge mistake in the 1990s when it sued two volunteers with the activist organization London Greenpeace for a street pamphlet they wrote called, "What's Wrong with McDonald's?" The trial, which the British press dubbed "McLibel," became the longest-running civil trial in British history and handed critics of McDonald's a media bullhorn for publicizing the chain's exploitative advertising, low pay and unhealthy food. And just like Streisand, McDonald's ended up losing the lawsuit.
快餐巨头麦当劳曾在上世纪90年代犯下一个巨大错误。当时，他们起诉了London Greenpeace这一活动人士组织中的两位志愿者，因为他们写了一篇名为《麦当劳怎么了》文章印在册子上在街头分发。这一诉讼被英国媒体称为“McLibel”，而且该诉讼称为英国历史上持续时间最长的一场民事诉讼。这场诉讼几乎像是为麦当劳的批评者们亲手递上了媒体这一大喇叭，将该连锁品牌的剥削式广告、低薪酬和不健康食品广泛传播。而且像史翠珊一样，麦当劳最后输掉了这场诉讼。
Fox News also fell victim to the Streisand effect the same year that Streisand shot herself in the proverbial foot. In 2003, the cable news network sued Al Franken — then a comedian and actor, not yet a senator — for copyright infringement over his anti-conservative book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." Fox News alleged that the phrase "Fair and Balanced" was its intellectual property, but a judge disagreed. Not only did Fox News lose the case, but the free publicity shot Franken's book to the top of the bestseller list.
就在史翠珊搬起石头砸自己的脚的同年，Fox 新闻也受到了史翠珊效应的影响。2003年，这一有线电视新闻公司起诉 当时只是一名喜剧演员和演员，尚未成为参议院的 Al Franken，起诉原因是认为 Al Franken的反保守主义著作《谎言与撒谎的撒谎者：对右派的公平平衡解读》侵犯了其版权。Fox新闻诉称，“公平平衡”是其知识版权，但一位法官并不认可。Fox 新闻不仅输掉了这场官司，这一免费推广还将 Franken的书推到了最畅销书单榜首。
One of the funniest/saddest examples of the Streisand effect took place in Scotland in 2012, when a 9-year-old schoolgirl Martha Payne began taking pictures of her school cafeteria lunches and writing about them on her personal blog. When the chef and TV personality Jamie Oliver tweeted about Payne’s blog, the site received 3 million hits in just two months. The local town council, fearing that the grade-schooler was making them look stupid, did something even stupider and banned her from taking photos at school. Of course, Payne blogged about the ban, too, which made international news. The town council publicly apologized and removed the ban.
史翠珊效应的其中一个最搞笑，也是最悲伤的例子发生在2012年的苏格兰。当时，一位9岁的女生 Martha Payne 开始拍摄学校餐厅午饭，并在个人博客上写文章记录。当厨师和电视名人 Jamie Oliver 发推特讲述了 Payne的博客，其博客在两个月内就受到了300万次点击。当地政府担心这一小学生会让他们看起来很愚蠢，就做了一件更愚蠢的事：禁止她在学校拍摄照片。当然，Payne也在博客上提到了这一禁令，这一禁令也成为了国际新闻。最终当地政府公开致歉，撤销了该禁令。
"Outrage Management"
“公愤管理”
As amusing as these examples are, Jansen laments that most censorship efforts are successful. They work precisely because we never hear about them.
尽管这些例子很有趣，但Jansen 却哀叹表示，大部分审查行为都是成功的。之所以它们成功，恰恰是因为我们从未听说过它们。
"That's the way power works," says Jansen. "For example, the non-disclosure agreements that employees have to sign to work at many corporations. You can know something really bad is going on, but you can't tell anyone. Not only will you be fired, but you'll be sued."
“这就是权力运作的方式，”Jansen说道，“例如，员工在很多公司入职时必须签署的保密协议。你可以知道一些很不好的事情，但你不能告诉任何人，否则你不仅会被开除，而且还会被起诉。”
Even if a powerful person or entity is caught trying to silence a critic or hide a dirty secret, there's a whole crisis management playbook to diffuse public outcry. Jansen and Martin call it "outrage management."
即使当一位有权力之人或组织被发现试图噤声批评者或掩盖一个肮脏的秘密，也会有一套完整的危机管理策略，来消除公众呼声。Jansen 和 Martin将其称为“公愤管理”。
In their paper, they list five techniques that censors use to discredit and silence critics:
在其论文中，他们列出了审查者们用于攻击和噤声批评者的五种策略：
- Covering up the action
- Devaluing the target
- Reinterpreting events by lying, minimizing consequences, blaming others and using favorable framing
- Using official channels to give an appearance of justice
- Intimidating or rewarding people involved
- 掩盖行动
- 贬低所要攻击的目标
- 以撒谎、尽可能轻描淡写后果、指责他人、以有利视角解读的方式重新解读事件；
- 使用官方渠道，传递公平假象。
- 恐吓或奖励所涉及之人。
Jansen and Martin also gave an example about the Nazis. In their Euthanasia program which was meant to kill people with disabilities, they used all five methods of that.
They hid the program from the public, that’s number 1.
They stigmatize people with disabilities as a burden for the society. That’s devaluing the target.
They lied about the events, so that’s reinterpreting it. To anyone who had a question, like the parent of the victims, they would just say, oh, they died of this other disease or from natural causes or something.
They also intimidated parents who would not back down, saying: hey, do you wanna lose the rest of your kids? No? then be quiet.
They also allowed for formal complaints to be levied, but of course they never went anywhere, so they gave an appearance of using official channels for justice.
Jason 和 Martin 还给提到了纳粹的“安乐死”计划。该项目旨在杀掉残障人士。纳粹分子在这一计划中使用了上述全部五种策略。
他们向大众掩盖了这一计划。这是第一条。
他们他们羞辱残障人士，将他们定义为社会负担，这是贬低所攻击目标的价值；
他们对这一事件撒谎，这属于对事件重新解读。对于有质疑之人，比如受害者父母，他们会说，他们死于其他某种疾病，或自然原因，或其他原因等。
对于不肯退让的父母，他们会采取恐吓策略：你是不是还想失去其他孩子？不想？那就闭嘴！
他们还允许人们提出投诉，但这些投诉根本就不会被处理。这属于通过官方渠道做出正义公平假象。
"There are PR people who are very good at doing this kind of thing," says Jansen. "They set up listening sessions with people who are objecting to something, then single out one or two people and put them on a 'committee.' Sometimes they even overtly bribe people with some kind of honorific and then proceed with whatever they intended to do in the first place."
“有很多公关专业人员非常擅于做这类事情，”Jansen说道，“他们与某件事的反对者们开展倾听谈话，之后选择其中一到两位，让他们参与到一个‘委员会’中”。有时，他们甚至公然用某种荣誉来贿赂别人，然后继续开展自己原来的计划。
The Streisand Effect Depends on Free Speech and Press
史翠珊效应取决于自由言论与媒体
The Streisand effect can be an effective check on censorship and the misuse of power to bully critics into silence, but only if the act of censorship is dragged into the light by a free and unfettered press. None of the examples we cited above, including Streisand's, would have happened if not for journalists picking up the stories and bringing them to the public's attention.
对于审查和通过滥用权力来噤声批评者这些行为而言，史翠珊效应可以产生有效的抑制作用，但前提是，这种审查行为需要被自由媒体曝光。如果没有记者报道这些故事，将这些故事带入大众视野，那么上面的所有例子，也包括史翠珊本身的例子，都可能并不会发生。
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the media as a check on censorship has taken a hit during the "fake news" era. If politicians and other people in power can dismiss news stories that make them look bad as biased or false, then the power of the Streisand effect dries up.
不幸的是，媒体作为信息审查行为的有效抑制工具，在这个“虚假新闻”时代，其有效性遭受重创。如果政治家和其他有权力之人将对自己不利的新闻故事直接定性为有偏见或虚假新闻，那么“史翠珊效应”的力量就会枯竭。
