Why Barclays Are Barking

The little brouhaha concerning the Guardian and Barclays Bank is a wonderful object lesson in how the Internet changes everything. Once those super-secret documents were put up for even a few seconds, the game was over: taking them down from the Guardian afterwards really is the proverbial closing of the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Inevitably, a copy has made its way to Wikileaks; inevitably that link is being exposed all over the place, which has led to the site being overloaded (do make a donation if you can: I've given my widow's mite). Barclays Bank can apply for as many injunctions as they like, the judge can - and probably will - huff and puff as much as he/she likes, but the game's over: this stuff is out.

And quite right too: these documents either show the bank engaged in something dodgy, in which case they should be published, or they don't, in which case there's no problem in them being public anyway, since the bank is asking for serious scads of public dosh, and is effectively being part-nationalised.

But even if it weren't, it would be folly to try to keep them secret now: it would only ensure that even more people write about them, and point to them, and maybe even read them. The rules have changed.

Of Blacklists and Barbra Streisand

In the wake of news that Australia's blacklist has been leaked, I came across these interesting comments:

"Because this is a secret that has been leaked, everyone will be after it.”

“Every Australian will want to know what they were not they were considered so irresponsible to not leave alone.”

Guys said the leakage is proof that the list will be continually leaked if the Internet content filters are enforced, which he said will completely undermine its effectiveness.

Of course, the classic Streisand effect applied to blacklists: as soon as you create one, everyone wants to know whats on it, and some will manage to do so despite the blacklists - thus ensuring that those sites will get far more traffic than if no blacklist had been created.

So blacklists are actually one of the most foolish ways of trying to censor: wonder how long it will take the authorities to work this one out?

Bank Julius Baer, Meet Barbra Streisand

One of the claims to fame of Techdirt's Mike Masnick is for coining the phrase "the Streisand effect":

The phenomenon takes its name from Barbra Streisand, who made her own ill-fated attempt at reining in the Web in 2003. That's when environmental activist Kenneth Adelman posted aerial photos of Streisand's Malibu beach house on his Web site as part of an environmental survey, and she responded by suing him for $50 million. Until the lawsuit, few people had spotted Streisand's house, Adelman says--but the lawsuit brought more than a million visitors to Adelman's Web site, he estimates. Streisand's case was dismissed, and Adelman's photo was picked up by the Associated Press and reprinted in newspapers around the world.

So attempts by the Bank Julius Baer to shut down the Wikileaks site are not only doomed, but doomed to make things much, much worse than if the bank had just put up with it. Fighting openness is just not a good idea.