UC Davis Pepper Spray

[Subby]

UC Davis paid to have negative online presence scrubbed after pepper-spraying scandal - The Washington Post

The University of California at Davis shelled out some $175,000 to consultants to clean up the school’s online reputation following a 2011 incident in which campus police pepper-sprayed student protesters, according to documents cited by the Sacramento Bee.

The newspaper reported Wednesday that the documents — including proposals and purchase orders — reveal that the school paid to have negative internet search results scrubbed to help the reputations of the university and its chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi.

The university has since confirmed that it tried to improve its reputation following the pepper-spraying scandal.

“We have worked to ensure that the reputation of the university, which the chancellor leads, is fairly portrayed,” UC Davis spokeswoman Dana Topousis told the Bee. “We wanted to promote and advance the important teaching, research and public service done by our students, faculty and staff, which is the core mission of our university.”

The incident occurred Nov. 18, 2011, when Occupy demonstrators ignored orders to leave the UC Davis campus and university police started spewing pepper spray into the crowd.

The police response prompted massive protests on campus, which gained national media attention and ignited a debate about police brutality and use of excessive force against peaceful protesters.

The Sacramento Bee reported that the backlash lingered for more than a year as the university became embroiled in investigations and lawsuits that soiled the school’s reputation.

In January 2013, UC Davis signed a contract with Nevins & Associates in Maryland for “eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results on Google for the university and the Chancellor,” according to the proposal. The cost: $15,000 a month for six months.

“Nevins & Associates is prepared to create and execute an online branding campaign designed to clean up the negative attention the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Katehi have received related to the events that transpired in November 2011,” the proposal said. “This campaign also includes consultation services from David Nevins, founder and President of Nevins & Associates, to provide further support to the reputation enhancement efforts of the university and Chancellor Katehi, as desired.

“Online evidence and the venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the Chancellor are being filtered through the 24-hour news cycle, but it is at a tepid pace.”

The following year, the university hired Sacramento-based ID Media Partners, known as IDMLOCO, for $82,500 to “design and execute a comprehensive search engine results management strategy” with the intent to “achieve a reasonable balance of positive natural search results on common terms concerning UC Davis and Chancellor Katehi,” according to the proposal.

The Bee reported that the firm was awarded a second contract in February 2015 for $8,000 a month (up to a maximum of $96,000) to improve the university’s social media program; a third contract was awarded in September 2015 for $22,500 a month (up to a maximum $67,500) for a strategic communications redesign.

The university told the Bee that the funds were taken from the communications department budget.

Today, a Google search for “UC Davis pepper spray” pulls up news articles and YouTube videos of the 2011 incident as well as results on John Pike, who was identified as one of the campus police officers captured on video pepper-spraying protesters. A search for “UC Davis” reveals mainly university-sponsored web pages, including its Facebook page and an official athletics page.

In recent years, online reputation management agencies have become popular among celebrities, corporations and other high-profile clients who want a fresh start online.

Daniel Russell from Go Fish Digital, a firm based in McLean, Va., told The Washington Post’s Caitlin Gibson in 2014 that repeated searches and clicks tell search engines such as Google that the link is important.

“If there’s something bad out there,” he said, “the first thing to do is to stop looking at it.”

But Doug Elmets, a public affairs consultant in Sacramento, told the Bee this week that it’s surprising UC Davis thought it could keep its cleanup efforts quiet.

“I would say that it is common for an individual who might be applying for a job or an individual who has been wrongly maligned to go to a company like Reputation.com, but for a public university that is funded through taxpayer funds, who has repeatedly stepped into a vast hole, it is surprising that they thought this could be done without the light of day shining on the act,” he told the newspaper. “It is one more example of how out of touch the leadership at UC Davis is when it comes to their public perspective.”

Neither Nevins & Associates nor IDMLOCO provided comment to the Sacramento Bee or the Associated Press.

UC Davis officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

[britrock88]

Thanks for sharing.

[Subby]

Feel free to share liberally across the interwebz.

[cartman]

With pics and video, if you have them available

[Subby]

Here is an example of UC Davis pepper-spraying non-violent protesters!

[BishopMVP]

Campus cops tend to be poorly trained and suck at crowd control, and clearly they should not have done that. I also have no problem with the university paying to make sure their reputation focuses on the 99.99% of stuff that goes on instead of having one bad incident on their part define their university and alumni. So what's your angle here?

[Easy Mac]

I think the angle would be that unless you're Kobe Bryant, you can't pay enough money to make one bad incident disappear from the internet, so it just seems dumb and wasteful of taxpayer money to try and make this one disappear.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Well, at least there were sane people at a California college for one day a few years ago.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Campus cops tend to be poorly trained and suck at crowd control, and clearly they should not have done that. I also have no problem with the university paying to make sure their reputation focuses on the 99.99% of stuff that goes on instead of having one bad incident on their part define their university and alumni. So what's your angle here?

The angle is that this is an interesting news story - primarily that a publicly funded university would use taxpayer funds to do what they can to whitewash history.

It was also a trap for jimga but he got in an out pretty easily.

[Dutch]

I wasn't taking the bait! Thought about it though. But instead, fuck it, kill em all.

Edit: Changed 'me' to 'em'.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Subby

The angle is that this is an interesting news story - primarily that a publicly funded university would use taxpayer funds to do what they can to whitewash history.

As the article points out -- pretty fairly IMO -- that's basically part of p.r. / marketing in the 21st century.

Spin control, essentially.

It's done at levels far below this -- I see it frequently locally -- rather routinely in my experience. If it's "an interesting news story" then I'd have to think that perhaps mostly because someone hasn't noticed it before.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Subby

The angle is that this is an interesting news story - primarily that a publicly funded university would use taxpayer funds to do what they can to whitewash history.

"Whitewash history" seems a bit aggressive. UC-Davis admits its employees actions were wrong, says they'll train them better, and has promised it won't happen again. They're not trying to claim something didn't happen, they're just trying to push it down to page 2 of the google results for the idiots who judge a college based on its first couple SEO hits.

I am guessing it was overpriced if not ineffectual, and it sounds like the (ex?-)Chancellor should also be punished, but I have no problem with a public university paying to direct attention towards the better things they've done.

[MrBug708]

So a university is trying to fix its image and we need a thread about it on fofc?

Ok.

[Karlifornia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Well, at least there were sane people at a California college for one day a few years ago.

Shut up.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Karlifornia

Shut up.

Is this the part where I go "nyah nyah nyah nyah .... yooooou can't maaaaaake me"?

As soon as I saw the word "Occupy", I knew that there really wasn't anything the police could have done that would have bothered me. I mean, other than ignore the vermin.

I'd have preferred a military response frankly, but air strikes do cause property damage so I suppose a little restraint is required occasionally.

[Young Drachma]

It's the idiocy that she thought this would work. Like this is "we clearly don't have anyone on cabinet who knows anything about the web."

Also, authoritarian lovers of liberty aside.. this entire thing is just a hilarious waste of money.

UC Davis spent $175K to hide this video from the internet.

Here's how they manipulated Google:https://t.co/UPzTYWYqjk

— AJ+ (@ajplus) April 16, 2016