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UC Davis Wondered If $175,000 Would Make the Internet Go Away. Conclusion: No
- marze 11y agoI thought the previous article suggested that they spent several times that.
- i_have_to_speak 11y agoHere's a meme: http://i.imgur.com/4WgaE5S.jpg http://i.imgur.com/4WgaE5S.jpg
- tellarin 11y agoOr, as I heard earlier today... Trying to dupe the Internet: 175k Watching it backfire: priceless. :)
- wlesieutre 11y agoAlso got a lot of traction on r/photoshopbattles. Not the greatest work I've seen on there, but many more comments than they typically get. https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/4f260e/psbattle_the_uc_davis_pepper_spray_incident_that/ https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/4f260e/ps...
- tellarin 11y agoI guess they never heard of the Streissand effect, huh?
- timthelion 11y agoWhat is really fucked up is this though: "After the Nevins & Associates contract expired, the University hired in 2014 the Sacramento-based company ID Media Partners in an $82,500 contract to “design and execute a comprehensive search engine results management strategy" aimed at improving the reputation of the University and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi."[1] So basically, they are using student tuition to promote a private person (Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident#University_PR_response.3B_alleged_attempt_to_divert_web_searches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident...
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoArguably, the tarnished reputation of their current administration hurts their admissions and reputation as a school as well. In this context, I wouldn't really say they're "promoting a private person".
- mattnewton 11y agoAnother strategy to help the reputation as a school would be to replace those members of the administration..
- vehementi 11y agoWhich one is more expensive
- mattnewton 11y agoWell seeing that the expected value of trying to erase something from the Internet for any sum of money appears to be 0, I'd say replacing the administration is a safer bet.
- YokoZar 11y agoThe chancellor was hired with an enormous salary under the theory that she would be net more donors and be worth it. Donors who gave so much money they have buildings named after them wanted her to resign. They didn't get their way. As an alumni, I received emails from the chancellor about the pepper spray. The first arrived the day of, reflexively siding with the police. A day later, when this appeared politically untenable, she called for an investigation to conclude in 30 days, the Reynoso report. 30 days later I got an email from the chancellor again -- she had ignored the report entirely and was asking for money. I went to the internet to look up the report, and it found her largely culpable. I removed myself from the alumni mailing list. I decided that, no matter how rich I ever got, I would never give anything to UC Davis.
- tgb 11y agoThis could be a matter of selection bias: who knows how many groups have successfully hidden something for $175000? We'd never have heard about it.
- adrenalinelol 11y agoJust think of all the extra payments they'll require to scrub the new batch of stories.
- gk1 11y agoThis is a common service offered by SEO and marketing firms. Some are centered entirely around the need to "polish" search results, like Reputation.com.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tdaltonc 11y agoIf the US had a EU style "right to be forgotten", could Chancellor Katehi use it to make google forget about this?
- thatcat 11y agoIf the US were to pass such legislation, its not likely that right to be forgotten would apply to public figures acting publicly since that's a protected class of free speech.
- detaro 11y agoThat stuff is pretty badly specified and has pretty random processes, but it seems unlikely. Some speculation: a) officials doing things in their official role generally have by default "public interest" against them b) She is still chancellor, making the public interest even argument stronger and weakening her case. This is all still somewhat going on, not some transgression in the past, which these rules mostly are about. And even in the future, a few years after she has left c) the university doesn't have the personality right, and the information who has been chancellor at a specific time won't be generally removed. So even if she would win a request to remove her name, it would be trivial for sites to still make the connection, making the entire exercise pointless for her, especially since I'd expect it to require a few court cases, triggering Streisand to full effect again. If some site published private data about her (where she lives, about her family, ...) right to be forgotten might be used against these specific instances.
- godgod 11y agoYour tax dollars, hard at work scrubbing the truth from the web. Nice job UC Davis.