Coca-Cola and scholarships: yet another clickbait fake partnership

[question]

In recent times, the University of the People has been bombarding all social networks with advertisements about a new alleged partnership with Coca-Cola, which would supposedly involve distributing scholarships left and right "so that the University of the People can help the progress of humanity yadda yadda yadda". And then come the usual self-congratulatory fanfares about UoPeople's international achievements etc. The funny thing is no one knows whether this "partnership" actually exists: in fact, there is no trace of the University of the People in Coca-Cola's documents or official statements. However, in the meantime, UoPeople is raking in tons of clicks thanks to people searching for Coca-Cola on social media. Regardless of whether the partnership or the scholarships exist, this stunt is therefore a way to attract clicks. Mind you, there's nothing surprising about this, because in the past UoPeople had already used tricks of this kind: from a partnership with "Harvard Business School" to "our famous student Simone Biles", the University of the People never misses a chance to make itself look ridiculous.

[Hotdogman1]

ok........

[Tomas]

One of million mentions of Coca Cola on a particular day, moreso totally unrelated to actual product, will not rake in tons of clicks...
It would not involve distributing scholarships left and right. It is a grant with specific timing and allocation.

[question]

"It is a grant with specific timing and allocation."

Can you show an official statement from Coca-Cola that confirms what you're saying?
Or are you just repeating the misleading advertising of the accredited diploma mill?
And besides, even assuming this partnership did exist, wouldn't it make more sense to actually distribute the scholarship funds instead of aggressively advertising this hypothetical initiative?

All of this is very reminiscent of when Shai Reshef claimed to have formed a partnership in Israel with Pope Francis. Too bad the Pope had never even heard of the University of the People  In the end, the clicks from the followers of the Pope came in handy too, nothing goes to waste.

[bluebooger]

don't you think Coca Cola would file a cease and desist if this weren't true ?

I also see Coca Cola is offering financial assistance to students of  historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), historically Black community colleges (HBCCs), predominantly Black institutions (PBIs), medical and law schools. 

https://tmcf.org/open-scholarships/2026-...2026-2030/

and also to Yale             
https://yale.communityforce.com/Funds/Fu...583771413D

I don't see that mentioned anywhere on Coca Cola's site -- maybe its there and I just missed it -- or do you think those places are also lying ?

but again, don't you think Coca Cola would file a cease and desist if this weren't true ?

[wow]

There is no reasoning with "question." The only thing they ever post are speculative, unsourced and poorly sourced claims calling UoPeople's legitimacy into question. I think it's high time for mods to start locking down their threads or taking some other action to curb this behavior.

If someone hates any of the schools we talk about on here so much that's all they ever post about, they should start their own blog and leave this board alone.

[ghostlypast]

There is no reasoning with "question." The only thing they ever post are speculative, unsourced and poorly sourced claims calling UoPeople's legitimacy into question.

Let me drop a minor bomb.

"question" was a professor at University of the People.

Let me drop slightly larger bomb.

Evidence suggests he was hired in early 2015 and fired around May 2015. Why? Fake credentials. He claimed a degree from Princeton. Turns out, his degree was from Universal Life Church.

I can provide the receipts. Try as he might, the Internet never forgets.

[bjcheung77]

Hmm, they used one of those ULC vanity degrees? Interesting how they got hired...

[ghostlypast]

Hmm, they used one of those ULC vanity degrees? Interesting how they got hired...

I don't think he used it when applying.

He used to run a website called Presto News. It ran an article attacking the university. He later moved it to Evidence-Based Review. If you go through the history of the talk page (~2018-2020) for the UoPeople article on English Wikipedia, you'll see both of these raised by his sockpuppet accounts. Also, there is an Italian IP editor (~Nov 2020), which was him, that admits to having worked at the university.

He moved it to UoPeople Review, likely for SEO purposes. The university filed a trademark claim against the domain with Google (c.f., Lumen Database), so it moved to UoPeople Reviews. It finally settled on OnlineScams UK for a while. And it has now finally migrated to SelvaggiaLucarelli Blog. This latter website primarily attacks the person for whom its named.

Lucarelli wrote an article about him in Rolling Stone Italia in February 2018. It exposed that his academic credentials were fabricated, but that's just the mild side of it.

He also runs another website called Truffe UK. It attacks a university in Italy named LUMSA. It previously existed as Lum Sa It. You can find it on the English Wikipedia article for LUMSA. It was added by an Italian IP editor (i.e., question) on 18 August 2022.

There was also the academic cheating service that started on Fiverr before showing up on its own domain, CheatTurnitin com. It boggles my mind how his LinkedIn Pulse article about the service ended up cited in a published academic book. I mean the quality of academic work has just gone down hill. (Or maybe it was always bad.) The article did leverage his brief position at UoPeople though.

Edit: Slight correction. The LinkedIn Pulse article was cited in a general book, not an academic book. That article which was cited in an academic work was a pseudo-academic article he'd uploaded to Wikimedia.