UC Davis Wondered If $175,000 Would Make the Internet Go Away. Conclusion: No | Hacker News Reader

UC Davis Wondered If $175,000 Would Make the Internet Go Away. Conclusion: No

popehat.com

198 pointstempestn25 comments

What 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...

Arguably, 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".

Another strategy to help the reputation as a school would be to replace those members of the administration..

Which one is more expensive

Well 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.

The 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.

I have argued that policies (laws?) with teeth would be better than replacing the staff. Even if the UC would not enforce the policies, it gives rival agencies something to hold over them should they misbehave in the future.

Perhaps they should address the problem by publicly denouncing the administration and finding someone to fill their roles.

My daughter is a student at UCD. Chancellor Katehi has been the subject of protest again this year, though without pepper spraying, I believe. (apparently, these people can be taught a little bit)

Apparently, Katehi had a part time advisor job for about 4 years for $400 K per year with a textbook publishing company... (wait for it!). And preferentially selected said company's more expensive textbooks. For some reason, some students were very unhappy about this apparent conflict of interested which resulted in them / their parents getting soaked for books. The administration has been displeased with the disorderliness of the protestors, who have been very disruptive. (not 1960s disruptive, but you get the idea)

Ultimately, Katehi resigned from the position at the publisher. I think she agreed to donate some money to charity or some other token which didn't really amount to a clawback.

Here's where my cynacism kicks in: if Katehi resigns, it's likely because the rest of the mob threw her under the bus to prevent further investigation which might ruin things for everybody. Otherwise, the students might be best served by an explicit policy with teeth to prevent this kind of conflict of interest in the future. Throwing out Katehi might well result in a round of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss", simply starting over (for the next student class) where this one left off. So, ironically, I suppose it is a good sign that Katehi has NOT been forced to resign.

Disclaimer: I am staff at the UC. That doesn't mean I can't see how things frequently dysfunction at the highest levels of US govt and biz, though.

Oh dear! Is this discussion affecting page-rank for keys such as "Chancellor Katehi" "conflict of interest" "student protest"???

Life is hard.

Wouldn't want google to pick up keywords such as Chancellor Katehi + conflict of interest + student protest + pepper spray

Additional disclaimer: (duh) these are not the universities opinions, for any retarded who didn't figure that out. They are the opinions of a student's parent. Some of the figures are second hand, and may be a bit off.

Here's a meme: http://i.imgur.com/4WgaE5S.jpg

Or, as I heard earlier today...

Trying to dupe the Internet: 175k

Watching it backfire: priceless.

Also 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/ps...

This 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.

Just think of all the extra payments they'll require to scrub the new batch of stories.

This is a common service offered by SEO and marketing firms. Some are centered entirely around the need to "polish" search results, like Reputation.com.

If the US had a EU style "right to be forgotten", could Chancellor Katehi use it to make google forget about this?

If 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.

That 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.

I guess they never heard of the Streissand effect, huh?

I thought the previous article suggested that they spent several times that.

Maybe changing the number is part of their strategy. ;-)

When I first heard about it, the amount was in thousands. Then it went up to $100k. Now it's $175k and counting.

I'm just going with the notion that no one knows and most of it is made up for sensational titles.

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