Don’t mess with Facebook, Twitter, Blogs: Portuguese company Ensitel learns the hard way what the Streisand effect is

UPDATE: On December 31, 2010, Ensitel withdrew its legal action against the blogger

Portugal’s mobile phone store chain Ensitel, a branch of Avenir Telecom, put itself in the centre of a public relations nightmare of a storm after getting a court order to force a blogger (who happens to work for Portugal's leading web portal) to remove six posts originally published in 2009. The post series centered on the blogger’s frustration after Ensitel refused to refund her for a malfunctioning Nokia cell phone, acquired in Lisbon.

The blogger, Maria João Nogueira, offered her view on the bad costumer experience episode that ended up in court later that year. Ensitel won the case, but ended up losing far more than a client when two years later, on December 2010, requested a court order to force the blog posts removal on the grounds of defamation.

The blogger refused to delete the posts, and word of corporate censorship on the blogosphere quickly spread through fellow bloggers, Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, the #ensitel hashtag hit number one among Portuguese-speaking users.

On Facebook, Ensitel’s page was flooded with critical observations from clients, who then joined by the thousands groups like I will never buy another product at Ensitel. The company kept on a suicidal track when it started deleting comments from its Facebook profile and allegedly threatening Facebook users with legal action.

The case then spread to the Portuguese press, with newspapers pointing Ensitel’s naivety about social networks and columnists baffled by the level of rage exhibited by the Portuguese consumers in a time of deep political disengagement (contrary to the Greeks, the Irish or even the Icelanders, the Portuguese haven’t really protested much against current austerity measures).

The Streisand effect

This telenovela, as Maria João Nogueira calls it, is yet another example of the so-called Streisend effect, an internet phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of causing the information to be publicized more widely (see Wikipedia’s article on the Streisand effect).

The name was coined after American actress Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully attempted to remove an aerial photograph of her California mansion from an online gallery through legal action, causing millions of internet users to search and view that very same image.

In September 2009, Wikipedia lists, the Photoshop Disasters blog posted an advertisement from Polo Ralph Lauren that contained a heavily manipulated image of a female model. The post was subsequently reprinted by BoingBoing. Ralph Lauren issued DMCA takedown notices to BoingBoing's ISP and Blogspot, which hosts Photoshop Disasters, claiming their use of the image infringed copyright.

Blogspot complied, but BoingBoing's ISP consulted with BoingBoing and agreed the image was fair use. As a result, BoingBoing issued a mocking rebuttal, using the same image again and posting the takedown notice. The rebuttal was widely reported, including on frequently viewed websites such as The Huffington Post and ABC News.