The big idea: what if censoring books only makes them more popular? | Books | The Guardian

That censorship might actually enable the circulation of books rather than restrict it seems counterintuitive, but it's a pattern we see again and again. As an addendum to the better known Index of Forbidden Books, the Vatican published an Index Expurgatorius: a list of the bits that could be cut from otherwise offensive books to make them acceptable. Of course this became the book equivalent of Barbra Streisand's attempt to restrict the online circulation of images of her Malibu beach home: a move that inadvertently drew attention to the very things it was intended to suppress.