A reader notes that this is not just a game for individuals:
Prolly organized by a private firm or firms that do “reputation management”. UC Davis hired a firm like that to scrub Google after the pepper spray incident with students.
And here’s an article on that, from the Sacramento Bee:
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.
Some payments were made in hopes of improving the results computer users obtained when searching for information about the university or Katehi, results that one consultant labeled “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor.”
Others sought to improve the school’s use of social media and to devise a new plan for the UC Davis strategic communications office, which has seen its budget rise substantially since Katehi took the chancellor’s post in 2009. Figures released by UC Davis show the strategic communications budget increased from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015.
Scrubbing out unpleasant aspects of the truth, perhaps? I’m sure they’d argue it was lies or badly twisted truth, but it seems to me that should be met with rebuttals, not an eraser. From this perspective, it just makes them look worse.
