Mediaboss Marketing

15 June 2012 Last updated at 11:19 ET By Mario Cacciottolo BBC News

Argyll and Bute Council are in the news for falling foul of what's known as the Streisand Effect - the act of trying to suppress information but simply making it more widespread as a result.

Martha Payne, from Argyll, was writing about her school dinners on her NeverSeconds blog, taking pictures of them and offering ratings for their nutritional value.

But Argyll and Bute Council banned her from taking photos of her school's food, saying press coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

However, they reckoned without the Streisand Effect, which saw the photo ban make headline news in some of the nation's biggest media organisations and the story spiral into a much bigger one that it ever was before.

The furore forced the local authority to reverse the ban, with the leader issuing a statement to say there was "no place for censorship" on the council.

The story sums up the Streisand Effect, named after singer Barbra Streisand, which is an online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove information - a photo, video, story etc - results in the greater spread of the information in question.

Paul Armstrong, head of social for Mindshare, a global media network, says the Streisand Effect is a reminder to brands and celebrities about the effect groups, and individuals, can have on the internet in a very short space of time.

"People have an innate inquisitiveness. When this is mixed with a fear of missing out, feeling something is being hidden from them or that someone is overacting to something, it can cause individuals to react in undesired or mischievous ways that others then support.

"Mix this combination with a natural dislike for censorship and brands or individuals can have a recipe for disaster on their hands."

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The Streisand Effect: When censorship backfires