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UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

sacbee.com

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Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#51

Post by deong »

SilasX wrote: post #14
klenwell wrote: post #4

White did not respond to messages left for her last month or Wednesday, but a résumé posted for her on LinkedIn cites her experience handling “a successful 6 month long strategic SEO (search engine optimization) and online reputation management campaign for the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Linda Katehi.” Culminating with a lengthy feature in the Sacramento Bee. Mission accomplished.

So ... do they get a refund? I'm guessing the consultants' contract covered them here, as they can't do much about a legit info request.

Right. They probably executed the original contract well enough, but you can't game Google to prevent future news stories from appearing.

That's the nature of the game. These companies just flood the internet with innocuous data about the client in a way that's carefully aimed at pushing "bad stuff" down in the rankings. This works for a number of reasons, but a major one is that search engines prefer recency. Searching "Kobe Bryant" today is going to find way more articles about him scoring 60 in his final game than about him being accused of sexual assault in 2003.

If you keep making the news for doing bad things, that same tendency works against you. It's not like these firms can make Google ignore all the articles about you that haven't been written yet. Success is predicated on the idea that you'll stop doing stupid shit after whatever initial event required the service.

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#52

Post by deong »

vinhboy wrote: post #3

It's been a while since I've looked into these "reputation" services. Do they actually work, when not hit by the Streisand effect, or is it just snake oil?

I recommend "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson. He had the opportunity to work fairly closely with one of these companies as they did some work for one of the people you likely remember making the social media crucifixion circuit a few years back for making a stupid joke at the wrong time.

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#53

Post by GCA10 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #44
GCA10 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reputation services are actually rather entertaining to watch. I write a lot online, and a couple years ago, my older posts started attracting dozens of comments from a couple people who seemed to be in a frenzied hurry to get visible. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on. Why would someone be writing "Great post!" on 20 of my stories at 11:30 p.m.? Then I did a little checking on the names of the pos…

> Why would someone be writing "Great post!" on 20 of my stories at 11:30 p.m? I always thought these were linkspam bots, hoping to get a little pagerank from the url they submit with their name

Them, too. The amount of false flattery in the world is really getting out of control.

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#54

Post by danso »

Animats wrote: post #31
vinhboy wrote: post #3

It's been a while since I've looked into these "reputation" services. Do they actually work, when not hit by the Streisand effect, or is it just snake oil?

As someone who works on conflict of interest problems on Wikipedia, coverups don't work if the incident got substantial press coverage or involved jail time. Small embarrassing problems can sometimes be pushed to the background. There are at least four rich convicted felons who have Wikipedia articles and paid editors trying to whitewash them. They haven't succeeded.

As a Wikipedia reader, my favorite variation of that is when a nobody, some years before, has paid a firm to build up a Wikipedia biography, full of fluff accomplishments so-obscure-that-they're-probably-true, such as "Smith was nominated as Tuscon's Top 100 entrepreneurs Under 100 by TusconEntrepreneurXClub.com in 2012", and perfectly formatted and sourced in such a way that it can escape easy killing by a Wikipedia editor.

Years later, that obscure person gets caught up in an Internet-(infamous) scandal...and instead of just a bunch of self-made pages via LinkedIn, About.me, etc., that they can delete, they now have a suspiciously-seeming astroturfed Wikipedia entry with a prominent "Scandals/Controversy" subhead. And Wikipedia's pagerank being what it is...virtually no reputation-astroturf effort will overtake it.

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#55

Post by ghurtado »

alanh wrote: post #47
spacemanmatt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sir, I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

The reference is narrowly escaping me. Help? edit in reply: Haha, no, not Green Eggs & Ham another edit: I thought the parent & grandparent posts might belong together, but apparently not. I think GP is simply using this trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveYouTriedNotBe... — or perhaps this recent Dilbert strip http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-03-08

Dr Seuss?

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#56

Post by labster »

ginko wrote: post #48
labster wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one reason they ever remove a UC Chancellor: they stop raising money for the University. Donor cash is job one. Obviously, she's good at her job if she makes money, even if she moonlights in jobs that actively harm students. The only solution is to stop donating to UC Davis -- and UC in general. If the Annual Fund calls you, ask them "Has Katehi resigned yet?" That's what I do. If you really want to help…

This might sound silly but why would an alumnus, who spent thousands for tuition already, donate money to his university in the first place?

Because University was the best time in your life, and every day now is a dreary slog of mediocrity. By giving money, you can reclaim a part of your glory days that won't come again. You can feel like giving to other students will help their lives, as a pale imitation of what it would be like to be with that group again, having fun and chasing girls instead of supporting a dead-end marriage with a mind-numbing job. If you have enough money, you can even inject your name into student life by getting a building named after you -- you can prove to everyone that you are a success, even if you're still unhappy and growing older by the day.

Or maybe you just believe in supporting higher education. Either way.

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#57

Post by SilasX »

deong wrote: post #51
SilasX wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ... do they get a refund? I'm guessing the consultants' contract covered them here, as they can't do much about a legit info request.

Right. They probably executed the original contract well enough, but you can't game Google to prevent future news stories from appearing. That's the nature of the game. These companies just flood the internet with innocuous data about the client in a way that's carefully aimed at pushing "bad stuff" down in the rankings. This works for a number of reasons, but a major one is that search engines prefer recency. Search…

Right, but it's also kind of a special case in that your "future stupid stuff" must include the hiring of the very service that's going to clean up your previous stupid stuff -- so long as the public regards such hiring as stupid.

I guess this is one case where it's especially true that "if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself" :-p

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#58

Post by ben_jones »

Comment I saw on Reddit:

"Right before these conflicts of interest came out, the Sac Bee did a fluff piece about Katehi without any mention of the pepper spray incident. It was a female writer talking about how wonderful it was for Katehi to break the glass ceiling."

It seems there is some conflict of interest here, as the article seems to attempt to shift blame from the Chancellor to the university. Would it be unreasonable to assume there is a special relationship between her and someone at the newspaper?

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#59

Post by SilasX »

labster wrote: post #56
ginko wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might sound silly but why would an alumnus, who spent thousands for tuition already, donate money to his university in the first place?

Because University was the best time in your life, and every day now is a dreary slog of mediocrity. By giving money, you can reclaim a part of your glory days that won't come again. You can feel like giving to other students will help their lives, as a pale imitation of what it would be like to be with that group again, having fun and chasing girls instead of supporting a dead-end marriage with a mind-numbing job. I…

If you believed in "supporting higher education", there are probably better ways than supporting the one exclusive blue-blood institution you happened to attend ...

Re: UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

#60

Post by Sanddancer »

alanh wrote: post #47
spacemanmatt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sir, I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

The reference is narrowly escaping me. Help? edit in reply: Haha, no, not Green Eggs & Ham another edit: I thought the parent & grandparent posts might belong together, but apparently not. I think GP is simply using this trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveYouTriedNotBe... — or perhaps this recent Dilbert strip http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-03-08

Mister Horse from Ren and Stimpy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGlN6mluGA

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