Gina Rinehart tried to hide her portrait - it went global instead

If Gina Rinehart was trying to make sure no one saw a portrait of her, recent moves have had the opposite effect.

Last week, media - including Guardian Australia - reported that Australia's richest woman had demanded the National Gallery of Australia remove a portrait of her. The painting by the artist Vincent Namatjira is one of numerous portraits on display at the Canberra gallery in Namatjira's first major survey exhibition.

But the NGA rebuffed her demands - and news of her request has meant the portrait has been seen by many more eyes than it would have otherwise.

Rinehart appears to have fallen victim to the "Streisand effect", a term coined after Barbra Streisand launched a lawsuit in 2003 to try to remove an aerial photo of her California beach house from an online collection. Streisand's attempt to suppress the image led to almost half a million people visiting the ­Pictopia site to view the photo within a month.

A similar thing seems to have happened with Rinehart. The NGA told Guardian Australia in a statement that there had been a "noticeable increase" in visitors to the national gallery as well as its digital channels over the past week.

Google trends has also given us a sweeping indicator of the worldwide gain in traction of the search term "Gina Rinehart".

Before 15 May - the day the first stories about Rinehart's portrait demand was published - interest in Rinehart on Google was at roughly 0, meaning there was not enough search data on the term.