Kirby Delauter, a councilman in Frederick, Maryland, threatened a news reporter with a lawsuit if she printed his name. It didn't go as planned.
“Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an attorney,” Delauter wrote to Frederick News-Post reporter Bethany Rodgers. “Your rights stop where mine start.”
The story went viral, and the newspaper’s editorial board responded with an article Tuesday titled: “Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter.”
“Kirby Delauter, an elected official; Kirby Delauter, a public figure? Surely, Kirby Delauter can't be serious? Kirby Delauter’s making a joke, right?” the board said.
Printing someone's name in an article about parking spaces isn't illegal, of course.
“What's Kirby Delauter going to do? Sue everyone who's making fun of him on Twitter using the #kirbydelauter hashtag, or on Facebook? Boy, his attorney will be able to retire off that,” the article said.
There’s a term for this on the Internet – the Streisand Effect. That’s the unwanted attention that comes from trying to suppress information. The effect is named for Barbra Streisand, whosued in 2003to remove a photo of her home from the Internet.
The lawsuit caused the photo – like Kirby Delauter’s name – to be widely seen and distributed online.
See Kirby Delauter being Kirby Delauter in this Newsy video:
Gavin Stern is a national digital producer for the Scripps National Desk.
