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Earlier this year, we discussed how UC Davis detailed in a report that it spent $175k with a reputation management firm to try bury the 2011 pepper-spraying incident that has become so infamous, as well as to bolster the positive reputation and search results of its former Chancellor, Linda Katehi.
[...] A new report has been issued that makes it clear that the $175k with the one reputation management vendor was just the tip of the iceberg, and that Katehi's obsession with her own online reputation was far more serious than anyone had known. Indeed, her attempts to meddle in her own online search results started long before the 2011 pepper-spraying incident.
[...] While the initial reporting indicated a single vendor had been paid $175k on Katehi's request to try to control messaging about the school and herself through a barrage of good, but trumped up, press, UC Davis actually hired three different reputation management firms to do this, all to the tune of over $400k. And she appears to have been more concerned with her own reputation than that of the school she was to be stewarding.
[...] It goes without saying that as we, the link above, and several other online media outlets are discussing these revelations, and placing them alongside the original 2011 incident for context, the work of the three vendors and the nearly half a million dollars paid to them has failed.
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University of California in Davis Spent $175k on SEO and "Reputation Management"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Friday August 19 2016, @02:44AM
stop supporting shitty behavior! seriously, when someone does something absurdly wrong, you fire their stupid-ass. if you told them to do it then you are in the wrong line of work!
why is it so hard for some people to just do the right and decent thing?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gidds on Friday August 19 2016, @03:21PM
"I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that."
Sometimes it's not obvious what 'the right thing' is. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes ignorance or misunderstanding can lead us to make the wrong choice (especially when that misunderstanding has been carefully nurtured by those who would manipulate us). Sometimes we do a wrong thing because we think it'll lead to a greater good, or avoid a greater harm (and maybe it will). Sometimes all the choices we have are bad.
And sometimes the right thing may look wrong to people who don't know all the facts.
I don't know if any of those apply in this case — which is why I'm suspending judgement.
I'm not denying the need to diligently seek out the right things to do, wisely judge them, and courageously do them. But until you've been in that position yourself, you don't know how things look from there; if you did, you might judge differently.
(That last condition may be the most important one here. An online reputation is based on how things look — and appearances can be deceptive. Letting the online world judge everything seems to be veering a little close to vigilante justice and mob rule for my taste.)
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