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UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper-spray references from Internet

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C

chaobreaker

Member
You know, this incident?

192897-us-davis-police-lt-john-pike-dousing-seated-students-with-pepper-spray.jpg


The one that spawned a ton of hiiiiiilarious and totally unavoidable memes if you type "uc davis pepper spray meme" on any web search site?

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The one thats has "UC Davis pepper spray" second to "UC Davis" in suggested search terms on Google?

UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show.

The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper-spray incident.
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The documents reflect an aggressive effort to counteract an avalanche of negative publicity that arose after the Nov. 18, 2011, pepper-spraying of student protesters by campus police. Fallout from that incident continued for more than a year, as investigations and lawsuits played out and spawned criticism of UC Davis and demands that Katehi resign.
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http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article71659992.html

Streisand Effect at full force since this article has been published.
 
H

higemaru

Member
Still can't believe Louie C.K. would dress up like a cop and do something like that.

also come on, hasn't the world learned that you can't erase anything from the internet?
 
C

crowphoenix

Banned
You know, this happened and the Internet does not forget. So, it's a waste of money and one that makes it look like they decided to hide from the issue rather than address it.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
crowphoenix said:
You know, this happened and the Internet does not forget. So, it's a waste of money and one that makes it look like they decided to hide from the issue rather than address it.
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It directly affects their admission numbers, so I'm not surprised they went to such great efforts to do this.
 
A

aeolist

Banned
yup, that's the first search suggestion i get from google and just searching "uc davis" has 3 links to different versions of this story on the front page along with tweets of the same

bush_mission_accomplished.jpg
 
K

kirblar

Member
At some point they'll figure out the administrative incentives are the problem with higher education. They get to extract rents given the necessity of a diploma, and loans/grants just keep floodgates of money going to them.
 
A

akira28

Member
higemaru said:
Still can't believe Louie C.K. would dress up like a cop and do something like that.

also come on, hasn't the world learned that you can't erase anything from the internet?
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doesn't mean we can't convince some old people with a ton of money that we can erase their one tiny embarrassing thing from the internet.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
$175,000 probably isn't that much in the grand scheme of things for a big school, but I can't help but feel that that money could have been better spent for improving the lives and educations of its students.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
EBreda said:
I just googled "uc davis pepper spray meme" so yeah, that didn't work, UC Davis.
And you're out of 175k.
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People in this thread seem to be missing the point that you aren't going to be able to nuke a targeted search from bringing this stuff up, the point is to bury or minimize the top page or two of results when people search "UC Davis" so it doesn't show up. People don't go to the third page of Google and people who don't know about the incident aren't going to deliberately go searching for it.

Obviously, this news still messes things up for them, but it's not a real Streisand effect because UC Davis didn't do something as bone-headed and counterproductive as sue sites that had information on the pepper-spray or filed DMCAs about it.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Neuromancer said:
$175,000 probably isn't that much in the grand scheme of things for a big school, but I can't help but feel that that money could have been better spent for improving the lives and educations of its students.
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It's really nothing. It's not even two people's salary+benefits for a year.
 
G

GoldenEye 007

Member
Neuromancer said:
$175,000 probably isn't that much in the grand scheme of things for a big school, but I can't help but feel that that money could have been better spent for improving the lives and educations of its students.
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Well given people hate administrators and by extension the services school provides outside of pure academic learning, that $175k could go to a new professor or two. For a year or two.

Or maybe scholarships. You could pay for some books for a semester for the student body.


Edit: On a more serious note, 175k certainly might have gone to better training of the campus police. Would have generated much better publicity too, probably.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
Fuchsdh said:
Obviously, this news still messes things up for them, but it's not a real Streisand effect because UC Davis didn't do something as bone-headed and counterproductive as sue sites that had information on the pepper-spray or filed DMCAs about it.
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"The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet."
 
C

chaobreaker

Member
If anyone's interested: This podcast I listen too called Reply All covers the subject of online reputation management on this one episode. Highly recommended listening.

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/18-silence-and-respect/

This Guardian article by Jon Ronson is referenced in this episode

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/21/internet-shaming-lindsey-stone-jon-ronson

Basic gist of it is that these reputation firms actually could work to an extent. I doubt they could for something monumentally stupid as UC Davis.
 
N

NealMcCauley

Member
Fuchsdh said:
People in this thread seem to be missing the point that you aren't going to be able to nuke a targeted search from bringing this stuff up, the point is to bury or minimize the top page or two of results when people search "UC Davis" so it doesn't show up. People don't go to the third page of Google and people who don't know about the incident aren't going to deliberately go searching for it.

Obviously, this news still messes things up for them, but it's not a real Streisand effect because UC Davis didn't do something as bone-headed and counterproductive as sue sites that had information on the pepper-spray or filed DMCAs about it.
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Wouldn't that only work in the short term though, or only as long as the marketing team is contracted to keep the good results on top? To me it seems very likely the pepper spray results would eventually trickle back up if the work stops.
 
C

Corran Horn

May the Schwartz be with you
Oh Damn that was at uc Davis? Actually didn't realize that lol, work over there all the time. Thanks for informing me uc Davis.
 
B

Brian Griffin

Member
NealMcCauley said:
Wouldn't that only work in the short term though, or only as long as the marketing team is contracted to keep the good results on top? To me it seems very likely the pepper spray results would eventually trickle back up if the work stops.
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Yeah, it only works if people forget about or lose interest in whatever they are trying to "erase". Don't think it's going to pay off for them here.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Krejlooc said:
"The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet."
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Their attempts to hide the information wouldn't have had any unintended consequences if the press hadn't pushed out stories about it. I don't think you can compare that to the actual incident the Streisand nomenclature came from, where Streisand sued to prevent photos from being leaked and that just led them to being widely disseminated.

NealMcCauley said:
Wouldn't that only work in the short term though, or only as long as the marketing team is contracted to keep the good results on top? To me it seems very likely the pepper spray results would eventually trickle back up if the work stops.
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They might, but Google tends to prioritize newer and more-linked info. Presumably they could do a good enough job that time would take care of the rest. Then again, I don't think the marketing team minds if they have to keep hiring you.
 
R

RobotChant

Member
This incident has come back up because ucd students are calling for the chancellor Linda Katehi to resign after it was found out she was getting paid for sitting on for profit school and text book company boards while being ucd chancellor. Students and other activists have been protesting and having sit ins in her office building for weeks now. She has said won't resign.
 
R

radioactivez0r

Member
When you said "thousands" I assumed 10k on the high end, maybe closer to 5k. I did not expect 175,000 dollars. That seems like a hell of a lot of money.
 
S

SkyOdin

Member
That pepper-spray incident was one of the things that drove me to actually sign up for NeoGAF instead of just lurking and reading it. At the time, I really wish I could have said something to those fools who were justifying the actions of the campus police at the time. There were people here on NeoGAF saying stuff like "the protestors were blocking the path of students" and other such stuff to justify the pepper-spraying despite demonstrating some clear ignorance of how the campus is laid out. As a former student from UC Davis, the incident had me pretty angry.

It is sad that this incident is the one thing most people know about UC Davis. Other than some of the administration, the school is great, and the student reaction to the incident was incredible. The silent protest they made to the chancellor the next day was a profound moment.
 
K

Kettch

Member
GoldenEye 007 said:
Why is this being called an incident and not assault or battery?
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Probably because there were no assault or battery charges. I mean, here's what happened to the cop:
On September 19, 2012, the Yolo County District Attorney's office, citing insufficient evidence, announced that it would not prosecute any of the police officers involved in the incident for illegal use of force. John Pike responded that he was "relieved" by the decision.[79] Pike subsequently filed a worker's compensation claim with the California Division of Workers Compensation Appeals Board for psychiatric injuries he suffered as a result of the incident. In October 2013 the Division awarded Pike $38,055 in compensation
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The pepper spray victims were paid almost as much by the university.
 
S

SkyOdin

Member
Considering that the guy wasn't even trained on how to use that pepper spray or certified to carry it, and that it was originally designed to be used in completely different situations and was wholly inappropriate for use against individuals at close range, him getting off with a bonus paycheck is absurd. Of course, it was the entire campus police force that was responsible for that debacle, but that doesn't absolve him of being the one who pulled the trigger on completely passive protestors.

Ugh, the anger from back then is bubbling back up to the surface.
 
S

SneakyStephan

Banned
higemaru said:
Still can't believe Louie C.K. would dress up like a cop and do something like that.

also come on, hasn't the world learned that you can't erase anything from the internet?
Click to expand...

Valve scrubbed google and other search engines clean of any links or downloads for the half life 2 alpha leak within 48 hours of it being released.

It was the first time I saw anything like that being done.
 
E

Erevador

Member
efyu_lemonardo said:
Where's this from?
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From the episode of Louie where Robin and Louie meet up to go to a stripclub frequented by a dead "friend" they both despised.

Kind of dark in retrospect, because the final lines they are speaking in that GIF show them re-assuring each other that they will attend the other's funeral.
 
I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
SneakyStephan said:
Valve scrubbed google and other search engines clean of any links or downloads for the half life 2 alpha leak within 48 hours of it being released.

It was the first time I saw anything like that being done.
Click to expand...

2003/04's internet was a completely different animal.
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
The use of the word "thousands" here makes absolutely zero sense. The actual number is literally two orders of magnitude larger.

It's like using the word "hundreds" to describe something that cost $20,000.
 
E

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
Erevador said:
From the episode of Louie where Robin and Louie meet up to go to a stripclub frequented by a dead "friend" they both despised.

Kind of dark in retrospect, because the final lines they are speaking in that GIF show them re-assuring each other that they will attend the other's funeral.
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oneils said:
Season 2 or 3 of Louis CK's show: Louie

Here it is: http://youtu.be/FrBWUYmOOz4

Lol here is the whole scene. It's pretty good http://youtu.be/RyLbTS1xMkA
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That's fantastic!
 
Z

ZombiePlatypus

Member
Wow so they wasted a shitton of money reminding everybody of what they wanted everyone to forget?

And I guess the costs will just be passed on to tuition fees. Someone needs to get fired for opting to throw money down the drain with such incompetence.
 
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