How does one say "going viral" in French?
Richard
French Intelligence Agency Sees Firsthand The Streisand Effect
FierceGovt, 8 Apr 2013
The French government is learning firsthand about the Streisand Effect after Wikimedia France issued April 6 a press release stating that a domestic intelligence agency threatened a volunteer with arrest unless he deleted an entry about a military communications base near Lyons.
According to the French chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, the intelligence branch of the Ministry of the Interior, contacted the foundation in early March, claiming that an article about the Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre-sur-Haute contained classified military information, and demanded its immediate deletion. The foundation refused to do so.
The DCRI then summoned a Wikipedia volunteer on April 4 to its offices, and then forced him to delete the article "on the understanding that he would have been held in custody and prosecuted if he did not comply." The Guardianidentifies him as a curator with the National Library of France.
A discussion of French Wikipedia modifications shows an April 4 11:11 a.m. entry from a volunteer stating he deleted the entry on the grounds that it compromised national defense. Another user at 10:39 p.m. said he restored the article, and that "if the government seeks a victim be so kind as to direct them to me. And tell them that I [don't give a] fuck."
"Intimidation is not the right way to enforce military secrecy in France, and the Internet is not a place that has to be regulated in such a brutal manner," Wikimedia France states in its press release.
Another online statement from the Wikimedia Foundation says
the entry "corresponds almost exactly" with information presented in a local television report in which the commander of the military base answers a reporter's questions and shows him around the base.
As a result of the deletion, French and international interest in the heretofore mostly little-known military base has skyrocketed. Attempts to take down information from the Internet that result in its far-wider dissemination is known as the Streisand Effect, so named because singer and actress Barbara Streisand in 2003 attempted to suppress an aerial photo of her Malibu house that was a mostly ignored part of a 12,000-photo collection of the California coastline. She was unsuccessful.
Ars technica notes that Wikiscan, which collects analytics data about Wikipedia.fr, shows that the entry on the Pierre-sur-Haute military base was the most visited page on April 6 and 7, and is the second most popular on April 8. The entry on the "effet Streisand" is April 8's fifth most popular entry.
http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/st...ource=internal