pinakidion.*
A writing tablet for my thoughts
Beware the Streisand Effect
Author: John22 Oct
What is the Streisand Effect? It is a term used to describe a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a certain piece of information (for example, a photograph, file, or even a whole website) backfires and the information receives extensive publicity on the Internet in a short period of time.
ICoC Hot News is reporting on an article from the Daily Trojan that calls the LA ICoC a cult. (The USC article is here.) Responses in the HotNews article and the pro-ICoC comments to the story are almost the same. For those familiar with the ICoC, the responses follow the typical McKeanist pattern: attack the reporter, say mistakes were made, state that change has occurred, call for meeting with reporter and Chief Editors of newspaper. All of this reminds me of a certain committee chair that vowed to stamp out all church criticism within and without the ICoC. In many ways, this is similar to discussion on Wikipedia about Kip. Go figure.
More importantly, though, this kind of aggressive action could backfire. Because of the attention, traffic is being directed to anti-ICoC sites. Google searches on “Los Angeles Church of Christ” are only positive for the first two hits (at this moment in time, google searches are likely to change). If I was the LAICC, I wouldn’t be so quick to energize the anti-ICC folks. There are slightly more than three former members to every current member…
A small filler piece in a college newspaper is now becoming a big deal and it didn’t need to be. How is going through all the channels to publicly get the reporter to apologize and the editors to ‘change their ways’ going to help LA? Sure, I’d love to go to that church, they don’t let anyone talk bad about them!
For the record, here is the actual article written in the Catholic Newsletter in the Fall of 2000. If you want to talk fair and balanced, has anyone criticizing the reporter read this article (pages 6 and 7) she used as a source. Considering the actual article, the reporter was being really nice.
Also for the record, this is the letter that the Office for Religious Life wrote to the Daily Trojan.
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10 Responses for "Beware the Streisand Effect"
Well, what a wonder a week off does for you!!
Ok, I can’t remember about all the old stuff, but this was the first one where I remember university officials stating the article was unjust. Technically, ICOCHotnews didn’t report this until after the university chimed in. So, while I think it’s a little hyped for what it is, and it may indeed draw more attention to the negative of the ICOC past, they aren’t alone in their response to the article.
and….it takes the pressure off the whole UPC discussion.
ttk
ok…(this is too much fun)
all of this could have been communicated to USC in in three words:
“Leave Brittney Alone!”
by the way, I included the link to the letter to the editor. As ttk has said, the hot news article appeared *after* this letter was sent to the editor.
You have to ask, though, why was LaRouche’s group and the LAICC brought up? Dr. Whitsett has written papers about cults and families. The two examples in the story had to come from somewhere. Based on my limited experience as a college newspaper writer, I’d bet these two examples came from the talk.
Has anyone (besides me) asked Dr. Whitsett?
Good point. I certainly wouldn’t call for taking it down or censoring the reporter. But, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with discussing it, debating it. We *ought* to talk about this stuff, no?
Discuss it, yes. Attack the reporter and call for letters of apology, no. Calling for an apology is not a discussion - it is a demand.
Drawing attention to it is problematic. It was a minor thing that few people noticed. Now, many, many people know about it. We don’t come out looking like the good guys on this one. We look like Scientology’s lawyers that retaliate in response to being attacked. Now we are the ogre, especially at the perceived jubilation that we got what we wanted. Those that already hate us can now cite Yet Another Proof(tm) that we cannot discuss our past and that we haven’t changed.
We did not reach the parents that heard the original talk. They still have Dr. Whitsett’s notes and such. I assume, until directed otherwise, that we were mentioned in her talk with parents. Those parents aren’t going to get the retraction in the Daily Trojan. The perceived damage has still not been undone.
If, and I say *IF* the course of action is to demand apologies, then the correct person should apologize. As it is, I think we went after the wrong person. Now that the precedent has been set, we now have another test case with Father Ronald Stanley. Where’s the letters to him and to the Chancellor of Dominican College?
At least it was not called libel(or slander). The woman’s story is not false.
I’m not so generous with student newspapers and their writers. My freshman year in college, 2 years before I joined the ICOC, I signed up for the student newspaper. My first story assignment was to write about some students planning a strike against one of the dining halls because of complaints about the food. I visited the dining hall, talked to a lot of students, and learned that the talk of the strike was just a joke.
I came back to my editor and told her this. She responded, “If I send you out for a story, you better come back with that story, even if you have to make it up!” I looked at her and answered, “Then I don’t think I want to be a part of this newspaper.” I walked out and never went back.
Flash-forward 3 years later: After one of my classes, a freshman friend of mine tells me that a friend of hers is looking for a Bible study, and could she give her my number. I said, “Sure.”
Her friend (another freshman) called, excited because she had been looking for a Bible study since college started. We talked several times on the phone, met for lunch, she came to a Bible talk, etc. I was always upfront about us being the ICOC. Of course, I was excited about meeting someone “open.”
A couple weeks later, a guy who was a former member of the ICOC campus ministry approached me. “I still consider you a friend,” he said, “so I want you to be careful. So-and-so [my new "open" friend] is using you. She’s a writer for the [same campus newspaper I signed up for freshman year]. I overheard her laughing about it with some of her friends.”
A few days later, her story appeared in the newspaper. It was filled with lies about me and my friends - literal lies, not just “they called us a cult and we don’t agree” stuff.
I was very hurt. I tried to call the young woman, but she wouldn’t take my calls. I finally tracked her down on campus. She looked terrified of me when I approached her. I asked her, “How could you write those things? You knew it wasn’t true.” She answered, “I was trying to impress my editor. I just wanted a good story.”
I’m no longer an ICOC member and don’t have good things to say about either the Kip or non-Kip groups. However, I’ve gone through and read all the articles, and don’t understand your objections, Pink.
I don’t see how the LAICOC demanded an apology either. The ICOC Hotnews articles stated, “We at ICOC Hot News applaud his initiating a meeting with the editor of the school paper on Monday. We feel our student group is obviously owed an apology. We also believe that a retraction should be printed.”
That to me sounds like discussion and negotiation: “An apology and a retraction is what we would like. Now it’s your move.” I certainly didn’t see anyone heavy-handed tactics or threats of lawsuits, akin to Scientology. Did I miss something?
Also, the article from 2000 - I don’t think it’s that big a deal either. It’s the usual stuff: pressure to evangelize and to give, leading the young woman to want to leave, but struggling with her fear of leaving due to the OTC doctrine. Not that I don’t think those teachings were terrible - they were. But those are things that all of us went through, and are the things that the ICOC has repudiated. This is not the trauma of people with mental illnesses being told not to get medical help, people being abused by leaders, and some of the more serious abuses of the ICOC.
And how did they attack the reporter? They even started by saying, “Give her some slack, some of these things were true in the past.” They did point out that she didn’t really do the job of research she should have done, which is a true statement and not an attack on her. Plus, as I stated in my earlier post, I don’t think college student reporters are immune to criticism.
Hey Daughter,
First off, I would not wish the betrayal you experienced on anyone. I’m sorry that someone used you in order to get a story. That was very wrong.
I said that I had a little experience, I worked for two newspapers and helped start a third. My experience has been that reporters are a bit lazy. Until demonstrated otherwise, I believe that the reporter used two examples from the talk by Dr. Whitsett. Had she done her own research, I believe she would have found this article written two years earlier.
To me, it’s not about the quality of the article or the reporter. It’s about bringing negative attention to an anti-ICoC article. The intent is to remove misleading information about the ICoC from the internet. The effect is that this story has popped up in so many places, that it will never so away. Worse yet for the ICoC, any retraction or amendment to the original article does not get translated to all the copies carried by others.
This was a filler article. The deans of Religious Life wrote a letter that appeared the next day. Folks calling for meetings is fine, but an ‘official’ website pointing at it and saying, “See, this is wrong.” does nothing but generate negative attention. Now the critics are worked up again, and they will tend to ignore any change to the story and/or believe that the apology was somehow forced. I’m sure that critics are pointing to the one comment on the article that states the deans of Religious Life are only concerned with proving that *no* cults operate on campus.
In addition, if this is a new policy, then there are more examples that need to be addressed. Loomis is saying all kinds of things unchallenged. When will that be addressed?
I can’t get into this cause I don’t want to waste brain cells. But just reading through the comments it’s funny that the ICOC demands an apology when itself has the hardest time giving them out. Why not lead by example?
And, why not diffuse with humility instead of ignite with pride? I may be a little off tonight but the ICOC guys are not only unspiritual their stupid. Off course I get this from just parusing.
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