UC Davis Tries to Scrub Pepper-Spray Incident From Web, Which Means It’s Now the First Result on Google; New York Magazine, 4/15/16

Brian Feldman, New York Magazine; UC Davis Tries to Scrub Pepper-Spray Incident From Web, Which Means It’s Now the First Result on Google:

"An incredibly effective way to get people to talk about something online is to say that you don’t want people to talk about it. This is known as the Streisand Effect, so called after Barbra Streisand, in 2003, tried to get outlets to stop publishing pictures of her house.

The latest very expensive and profoundly funny example of this phenomenon comes from UC Davis, which spent a whopping $175,000 trying to bury posts about the infamous 2011 incident in which a campus police officer pepper-sprayed protesting students. According to the Sacramento Bee, the university was very concerned about the search-engine results that were being served up following the event, as well as social media posts, and so they hired a number of consultants to try and improve the situation."