How The Royal Family Got The World To Look At Naked Photos Of Kate Middleton [Updated]
from the streisand-effect dept
Update: Good points made in the comments that suggest that the graph below is actually more about the original news coming out in the evening, and the national UK press running the story in the morning -- rather than in response to the threat to sue. While the legal action certainly didn't help push the story under the rug (it's the only way I heard about it, for instance), it looks like we (picking up on the Forbes piece) went too far in assuming that the threat to sue is what resulted in the attention. The original story remains below.I don't tend to follow news like this, so there could be plenty of reasons why I missed the report that the wife of Prince William, Kate Middleton, had been photographed topless while on vacation with William in France. Of course, it could also be because almost no one paid attention to the story... until the royal family decided to sue. As Kash Hill correctly notes, this seems like yet another perfect example of the Streisand Effect in action. The story got very little attention... until legal action was threatened.
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Filed Under: kate middleton, lawsuit, naked photos, prince william, royal family, streisand effect
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The new marketing Paradigm
Spent 100 times less by just suing somebody. You will get everything you need to get people looking at your product by just suing.
Of course it will help if you have boobs involved
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I'm a victim too
Now I've seen the Royal Boobies, and yes they are nice, but until the Streisand Effect overwhelmed me, I had no desire to even peek. Who do I sue over this invasion of my will?
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Re: I'm a victim too
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Re: Re: I'm a victim too
The royals may not be pushed about the people who weren't being "served" by the newspaper in question.
After your image is used and hundreds of thousands of people have seen what you'd rather they hadn't does it matter to you if millions of others look at it to see if it really is something that would upset them too and largely decide that yes it is.
Most of the people in that spike of viewers have gone, wow, English woman has breasts shock news and as for the ones that would particularly want to see such an image, they may have gotten the hit all at the same time, but the nature of the internet is that it would always have been there so they would have seen it eventually.
So, on the basis that those kinds of people would see it eventually anyway, there was nothing to lose in suing, it's not like more people would suddenly become aware that she has breasts because of the case, most people probably assumed that already and it won't even mean that there'll be new pictures of her breasts.
I have still managed to avoid seeing them which is better than last year when I became aware that a certain footballer had had sexual relations with another footballer's wife despite me having no interest in football, footballers or footballer's wives.
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Re: Re: Re: I'm a victim too
Except they never would have seen it if the lawsuit didn't push it from "titillating" to "newsworthy".
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Re: I'm a victim too
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Just don't link to "them"
*Sigh* Youtube pulled that one down.
Where oh where will I find boobs now?
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Looks like a tempest in a B-Cup.
Fap, fap, fap!
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Re: I'm a victim too
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The images were published around 10:00 - 11:00 PM according to the graph and then around 7:00 - 8:00 AM the next morning people started tweeting...
Personally I believe the royal family's decision to sue did cause some Streisand Effect but this graph does not show it.
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The rise is due to folks waking up.
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It seems like this is one of those cases where making a 'stand' is considered to be worth the risk of increased publicity - and it's not like Princess Catherine is exactly a low-profile figure to start with.
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Which distracts attention away from the real cause of her death - namely the lack of a crash barrier to guard the pillars in the Paris tunnel. I understand that this STILL HASN'T BEEEN FIXED. This means that sooner or later other will die. Prince William would be better advised to ignore the paparazzi and make a fuss about the crash barrier. That way lives could be saved in future.
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Streisand or not, I think Barbra would have been happy with this limited an effect.
Stacking news is the best way to make them go away fast with low effect. If all sides of a case seems to be covered at first, nobody will waste time writing about it in the future except for retrospect articles and clever analysis that nobody outside the "social liberal-factories" (universities) reads.
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I just "Googled" the "pics"
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Re: I just "Googled" the "pics"
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Not fair i tells ya
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Not a Royal Fan but.........
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Thread is worhtless without pictures
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Re: Thread is worhtless without pictures
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Ditto
Finding Kate to be sorta babe-ish, I immediately raced to Google to find the images of her boobies. Tongue in lap I rapidly started clicking links, lest my keyboard or mouse short out from the drool before I found the nips in question. Sigh... how quickly I was disappointed in what I found. All I could think was, "dang... what nappy boobies for such a hot chick." I'll never look at Kate with such lust again.
That, I suspect, is the real reason the Royals are suing. Had Kate's boobies generated as much good publicity and as many positive comments as Kate herself had to date, then there'd be no suit. As it is, Kate's below average boobies have taken the polish off her image, tarnished her, knocked her off her pedestal of perfection.
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I suspect the latter AC is British and is more offended by the British remark than the nappy titty one. Unfortunately, however, in his haste to insult the first AC he has shown the world why there are so many homely looking brits, particularly in the royal family - British men spend more time looking at and thinking of other men's wieners than they do looking and and thinking of their women.
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Re: Thread is worhtless without pictures
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More cheap titillation.
Burma!
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The real action happened in the US market, in the US time frame, when sites like TMZ caught wind of the story BEFORE the royal family did anything. They stoked the fire, and only the very peak of the story comes from the lawsuit. Everything else was "hey, look, Kate's tiny boobs!". Even without the lawsuit action, it was a huge story, it just took a little while for the US media to get on it.
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Updated
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Re: Updated
Next time think for yourself.
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Re: Updated
Another point that you seem to miss out on completely, is that sometimes it does make sense to cause more immediate attention while fighting for a larger cause. In this case I would've expected more introspection from you, since it is a frequent topic on these pages: privacy. I don't think I have to expand any more, should be obvious.
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Yawn
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Re: Yawn
Next you'll be telling me that their nipples aren't blocked out!
Does the republican party know this??????
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Nipped in the bud... NOT!
I guess that's what happens when you try to "nip" it in the bud!
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To be really pedantic...
As for their decision to sue (and, iirc, report the matter to the French police as a crime), I wonder if that is less about stopping the publication and dissemination of the images than it is about sending a clear message to these sorts of photographers (I'm not sure the word "journalist" is really appropriate) that they will get in trouble if they try it again. The lawsuit may be less about suppressing the images as discouraging future publications (something the lack of a reaction to the Prince Harry photographs a few weeks ago obviously didn't do).
Plus, I don't know about the US press, but the UK mainstream media has taken a clear stand against publishing the photographs (even The Sun... and the 'outrage' in the Daily Mail was wonderfully hypocritical, but that's another story).
Freedom of expression may be a great thing, but I have no problem with discouraging people from taking photographs using a telescopic lens, of people who are relaxing, in private, on holiday.
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Oh good, I can remove Techdrt from my RSS aggregator
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ethics
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That might simply be poor graphing skills, but the graph that's shown hardly supports the TD or Forbes narrative.
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For appearances' sake
The only reason for the Kate lawsuit is that the Royals have to "cover their asses" for propriety's sake. Why would an international celebrity be topless, even briefly, out on a balcony? What did they think would happen?
Kate is rightfully proud of her body but hers are standard-issue B-cup b00bs & nothing special---royal or not.
P.S. Kate: B is my favorite size. Please do not get a b00b job.
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Errrr....
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