The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information that has the unintended consequence of causing the information to be publicized widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no censorship had been attempted. As early as 1993, John Gilmore observed that "the Net treats censorship as damage and routes around it."[1] Examples of such attempts include censoring a photograph, a number, a file, or a website (for example via a cease-and-desist letter). Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks