Fonterra's high court injunction is causing "the Streisand effect", with Fonterra's farmer-shareholders now anxious to know what is being kept from them, says Federated Farmers.
National dairy chairman Chris Lewis said his phone has rung constantly with inquiries since Fonterra late on Friday secured an injunction gagging former director Leonie Guiney and preventing a weekly publication publishing or using any "confidential" information it received from her.
The injunction also prevents other unnamed media, including the New Zealand Herald, from spreading any "confidential" information it may have received from Guiney.
"It's having the Barbra Streisand effect, now everyone wants to know what is the truth. It's put a massive spotlight on it. At one stage my phone was just vibrating," Lewis said.
The Streisand effect is the phenomenon named after American singer Barbra Streisand, whereby an attempt to hide, remove or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicising the information more widely.