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. It may be upsetting and embarrassing, but it's difficult to see how suing makes things better. All it did was get a lot more people looking for the photos and put a lot more attention on the story itself. I know that, at times when someone is wronged, there's a feeling that they must do something, but does it really make sense to "do something" if it also makes you much worse off?

Filed Under: kate middleton, lawsuit, naked photos, prince william, royal family, streisand effect