Online PR pros always consider the "Streisand Effect" when considering using one of the legal tools available to suppress an online critic. The Streisand Effect happens when the act of suppression draws more attention to the item you're trying to suppress than if you'd just left it alone. It's the online equivalent of why you don't go on the NBC Nightly News to refute a critical local news story that hasn't received any pickup.
The Yes Men dated their press release October 19th and held their event at the National Press Club that morning in Washington DC. The video was immediately picked up by the Huffington Post, whose coverage that day drove 24,156 views of the main video on YouTube. Even more people saw it that night on the Rachel Maddow show that evening.
The next day, October 20th, Rush Limbaugh picked up the story on his show and embedded the video on his website, driving another 23,000 views. Limbaugh's angle was about the gullibility of news media and an attack on the New York Times, though there's no evidence to suggest the New York Times was in the room.
This graph of the main video of the fake press conference however shows the YouTube views leveling off after the takedown was sent. The prank has peaked, and because of the real Chamber's fast action sending a takedown, they did it at a time when frankly no more damage could be done. It was already as bad as it could get.
Notice how new YouTube views start leveling off by October 21st. This meme is over. I have requested access to the traffic data for the prank US Chamber website from various Yes Men contacts, but have heard nothing yet. If I get access, I'll look to see if the takedown coverage spurred additional traffic to the prank website, validating some impact of the Streisand Effect.
What happens now?
Well I'm no great Internet sleuth, but it appears the Yes Men or their fellow pranksters have moved the parody website to a new ISP, Hosting.com. If the real US Chamber insists on following the Yes Men around the Internet sending DMCA notices to every new $10 / month hosting company they find, they could actually create news about how the no-budget pranksters are thwarting the real US Chamber and their lawyers.Furthermore, any attempt to actually drag them into court is likely to draw out big First Amendment defenders. It would be the height of foolishness to press this hard. The real US Chamber is probably better off using the domain name dispute resolution process to take away chamber-of-commerce.us. (Though I just checked, and to date a dispute hasn't been filed.)
While this will create some negative press, it will probably happen so far in the future that this issue (and the cap and trade legislation) will be long out of the public mind and generate little new press. It's also a much more direct solution than chasing the Yes Men off every ISP in the world, which is a legal game of Whack-A-Mole the Yes Men are bound to win. Until then they should just ignore it, the parody isn't getting a great deal of new attention anymore.
What about taking it a step further than ignoring it and using it to their advantage...maybe rally the base?
Posted by: Brian | October 27, 2009 at 08:01 AM
turns out they did. Mother Jones (one of the reporters was there) covered a fundraising letter they sent where they cited attacks from MoveOn and someone else who held a "fake news conference". See: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/10/chamber-uses-yes-men-attack-fundraise
Posted by: Shabbir | October 27, 2009 at 04:29 PM