Scrubbing the internet

[Timsup2nothin]

I think someone has done what I thought was impossible.

I was recently inclined to make a snide comment about Canada. This isn't new territory for me, and in the past I have backed it up by linking a favorite old commercial. The ad is from the Labatt Blue beer coming to America campaign, and features their iconic bear getting off a bus, of course carrying a supply of Blue. When someone is surprised to see him leaving Canada he explains that Labatt Blue is now available in the US, and "C'mon, it's an entire country that's north of Buffalo." I thought it was hilarious at the time, and have dug it up a few times since the advent of the internet.

But it's GONE. Flat gone. The bear has even made a comeback, and has his own Facebook page with links to his recent commercials plus some classics, but that one is gone. Not on YouTube, not mentioned anywhere. I understand the WHY of it, since offending their core market was actually a really bad idea, even at the time. What I'm amazed by is the HOW of it. I've always subscribed to the 'once it is on the internet there is no getting it back' theory, but I'm thinking that may not be true.

Anyone else seen something that has since been scrubbed? I'm a little bit uncomfortable with this.

 

[stinkubus]

LOL I remember that ad from when it was on TV. There have been tons of short clips from TV shows like the Simpsons, etc. that I like to use in forum posts that have disappeared over the years, but the only one I can think of off the top of head was a segment from an old WWF telecast where Hulk Hogan shared the "recipe" for his patented health shake. A plain text recap of the action would do it no justice; you really have to see a coked-out Hulk Hogan dumping whole eggs and raw fish into a blender and then drinking the results to appreciate how funny it was.

 

[Synobun]

It suffered the same fate as the Berenstein Bears.

 

[stinkubus]

*Berenstain

 

[Zelig]

I would call it "rotted", rather than scrubbed. Anything of sufficient interest will remain available, but the entire internet slowly decays. It's essentially link rot, but YouTube is an especially fickle and unstable platform.

 

[Narz]

I would call it "rotted", rather than scrubbed. Anything of sufficient interest will remain available, but the entire internet slowly decays. It's essentially link rot, but YouTube is an especially fickle and unstable platform.

How is YouTube unstable?

Also how is the internet decaying? As long as rent is paid links stay up forever

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I would call it "rotted", rather than scrubbed. Anything of sufficient interest will remain available, but the entire internet slowly decays. It's essentially link rot, but YouTube is an especially fickle and unstable platform.

This has a ring of good sense...but...

There are Labatt beer commercials in droves, on YouTube and elsewhere. You can even see commercials from their earliest campaigns that have been digitzed from the original film. There seems to be no 'shortage of interest' in play. So it seems an odd coincidence that the ONE that has 'rotted away' is the ONE that Labatt probably wishes they never made.

 

[stinkubus]

Should it really be surprising that a company wants to present itself in the best light possible? It's not like Disney or Ford go out of their way to educate people that their founders were both Nazi sympathizers.

 

[Commodore]

Challenge accepted. Do you know around what time frame this commercial originally aired?

I will find it. It's out there somewhere.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Sometimes when I can't find something on the internet I realize my memory failed me and got a detail wrong. Maybe it was in one of their other commercials? Maybe it was a different brand of beer? How many years has it been since you saw the ad?
Perhaps I'm just not using the right words typing into Google, that's been a problem sometimes too. Since I haven't seen the ad I don't know everything to try to look for.

Perhaps Youtube was the only place it was hosted, and they got it removed when they made a new ad to perhaps replace it, as all I can find is an ad from 2013 where the bear crosses the border and gets frisked by a female border agent.

 

[Bamspeedy]

 

[Gori the Grey]

Bam! that was speedy!

I was gonna be like Commodore and accept the challenge. Show off my Google Fu. But before I got a chance to even try, there it was.

 

[warpus]

Blue, one of the worst beers you can buy here. Zero taste, yet somehow leaves a disturbing aftertaste. Plus it costs quite a bit. If you ever want to try a good Canadian beer, definitely stay away from Blue and Molson Canadian. They just sell well because they're mass produced and mass marketed at people who don't drink beer for the taste.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Sometimes when I can't find something on the internet I realize my memory failed me and got a detail wrong. Maybe it was in one of their other commercials? Maybe it was a different brand of beer? How many years has it been since you saw the ad?
Perhaps I'm just not using the right words typing into Google, that's been a problem sometimes too. Since I haven't seen the ad I don't know everything to try to look for.

Perhaps Youtube was the only place it was hosted, and they got it removed when they made a new ad to perhaps replace it, as all I can find is an ad from 2013 where the bear crosses the border and gets frisked by a female border agent.

Well done! What did you use for the search string?

Should it really be surprising that a company wants to present itself in the best light possible? It's not like Disney or Ford go out of their way to educate people that their founders were both Nazi sympathizers.

I'm not surprised by their desire, just at how successful I thought they were. I'm still a little curious as to why it was so much harder to find.

Seriously, I've looked for and found this ad a bunch of times and never had to even look twice. This time I put in far more diligence and it didn't come up for me.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Well done! What did you use for the search string?

I just started watching random labatt blue videos to see if the words were spoken in a different commercial than what you remembered and then there it was in the 'up next' videos.

I see the name of the title is just 'labatt blue bear america'. Using those words in Google I can't find it. Using Youtube search bar brings it right to the top of the list.

I know I failed for a half hour trying to search for labatt blue bear buffalo (even trying to just google every variation of the joke to see if I could find at least a text reference about it instead of the video). I even tried looking for labatt blue offensive commercial/controversy to maybe find a news story about it, but found nothing.

 

[Zelig]

How is YouTube unstable?

It's built to optimize ads, not long-term stability of content or archivability, and as a monopoly, is a single point of failure.

Also how is the internet decaying? As long as rent is paid links stay up forever

Are you asking for my opinion? It's a pretty well-established phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot

This has a ring of good sense...but...

There are Labatt beer commercials in droves, on YouTube and elsewhere. You can even see commercials from their earliest campaigns that have been digitzed from the original film. There seems to be no 'shortage of interest' in play. So it seems an odd coincidence that the ONE that has 'rotted away' is the ONE that Labatt probably wishes they never made.

"Sufficient interest" is much easier to meet if the content creator is one of the interested parties.

 

[rah]

Yeah, that didn't take long. but it is slightly disturbing. I'd like to think there is a way to purge something from the internet. But I guess once it's out there, it has the chance of being copied before the person can delete it. And then it's all over. It can only disappear by it's ability to not being reasonably searchable. Like having XXX in it's description.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I just started watching random labatt blue videos to see if the words were spoken in a different commercial than what you remembered and then there it was in the 'up next' videos.

I see the name of the title is just 'labatt blue bear america'. Using those words in Google I can't find it. Using Youtube search bar brings it right to the top of the list.

I know I failed for a half hour trying to search for labatt blue bear buffalo (even trying to just google every variation of the joke to see if I could find at least a text reference about it instead of the video). I even tried looking for labatt blue offensive commercial/controversy to maybe find a news story about it, but found nothing.

I didn't use the YouTube search...but I also never had to before. Curious.

Yeah, that didn't take long. but it is slightly disturbing. I'd like to think there is a way to purge something from the internet. But I guess once it's out there, it has the chance of being copied before the person can delete it. And then it's all over. It can only disappear by it's ability to not being reasonably searchable. Like having XXX in it's description.

Someone with the resources and a legal claim can do more than the ordinary person. I'm sure that Labatt's has the resources, and they would have legal ownership rights to their own commercials. I was thinking that if they really tried they could probably get it removed from YouTube and the other major hosts. There's also a question about just making something hard to find. What would it take to pay companies that provide search engines to not find something?

 

[Bamspeedy]

I didn't use the YouTube search...but I also never had to before. Curious.


Someone with the resources and a legal claim can do more than the ordinary person. I'm sure that Labatt's has the resources, and they would have legal ownership rights to their own commercials. I was thinking that if they really tried they could probably get it removed from YouTube and the other major hosts. There's also a question about just making something hard to find. What would it take to pay companies that provide search engines to not find something?

ReputationDefender, which is perhaps the best-known reputation-oriented service, charges between $3000 and $10,000 to monitor your reputation. RemoveYourName and Integrity Defenders are a bit cheaper; their packages start at $3000 and $630, respectively. Often the quoted prices are just a starting point.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/216399/how_to_clean_up_your_online_reputation.html

I'm sure corporations are charged more than small businesses. It could be the video you used in the past has been removed (with probably more views) so this lesser-viewed copy was further down on the search list. Or more likely labatt has paid Google or a company like ReputationDefender to remove it or take it off the first several pages of the search list.

 

[rah]

If you googled you name and something unpleasant came up, would you try to make it go away.