  The Internet has become the new battle ground between authoritarian regimes
and ordinary individuals who want unimpeded access to information. The immense
popularity of online activism and citizen journalism enabled by social media
has instigated state level players to partially or completely block access to
the Internet. In return, individuals and organizations have been employing
various anti-censorship tools to circumvent these restrictions. In this paper,
we claim that censorship is futile as not only has it been ineffective in
restricting access, it has also had the side-effect of popularising blocked
content. Using data from Alexa Web Rankings, Google Trends, and YouTube
Statistics, we quantify the ineffectiveness of state level censorship in
Pakistan and Turkey and highlight the emergence of the Streisand Effect. We
hope that our findings will, a) prove to governments and other players the
futility of their actions, and b) aid citizens around the world in using legal
measures to counteract censorship by showing its ineffectiveness.
