from Hacker News

UC Davis spent thousands to scrub pepper spray references from Internet

by splat on 4/14/16, 4:31 PM with 75 comments

  • by tymekpavel on 4/14/16, 5:52 PM

    I'm surprised the chancellor hasn't been forced to resign yet. Beyond authorizing the pepper spray incident, she's made many more questionable decisions.

    1. Serving on the DeVry board without permission from the UC President, and receiving a generous paycheck. All while DeVry is under federal investigation.

    2. Serving on the board of a company selling textbooks to students and receiving stock-based compensation totaling half a million.

    3. Apparently now spending tens of thousands of dollars to scrub her previous mistakes from the Internet.

  • by Overtonwindow on 4/14/16, 5:05 PM

    Well, few things give more attention to something than attempts to bury it.

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

  • by klenwell on 4/14/16, 5:09 PM

    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.

  • by vinhboy on 4/14/16, 5:07 PM

    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?

  • by ljk on 4/14/16, 5:48 PM

    Doesn't seem to be working - top google results are about them trying to erase it now...

  • by coroutines on 4/14/16, 7:53 PM

    I wonder how they decided spending money on this would be a good investment.

    They must know how the internet works.

    What specifically were they paying for that made it worth it? Keeping references to the incident away from their Facebook page?

    Who HASN'T seen that image by now?

    What a misguided allocation of funds.

  • by eveningcoffee on 4/14/16, 7:03 PM

    Things like this is why I consider the PR people to be the worst of the worst scum.

  • by awinter-py on 4/15/16, 1:47 AM

    Hmm, should have paid that money directly to US News & World Report. Not sure how tear-gassing sophomores affects the ranking but I'm guessing low six figures can get you spot #3 on the liberal arts list.

  • by ben_jones on 4/14/16, 9:39 PM

    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?

  • by ceejayoz on 4/14/16, 5:50 PM

    "Have you tried just... not pepper spraying peaceful people in the face?"

  • by tobltobs on 4/15/16, 12:53 AM

    This is one of the few areas where the EU is better in protecting the rich and/or corporations. In the EU you can force Google to remove stuff like this from the index. I always wondered why the US is lagging behind on this.

  • by neves on 4/14/16, 6:56 PM

    Am I evil if I vote up this post so it counteracts the consultant job of hiding the pepper spray event from the internet?

  • by oluckyman on 4/15/16, 5:32 AM

    "UC Davis spent thousands...". Shades of Dr Evil.

  • by atom-morgan on 4/14/16, 5:50 PM

    If you've got nothing to hide..