Dangerous Business

Now, I like your freedom of speech as much as the next gal—technically more, probably—but i’m not about to get all up in arms because some ad industry blog has been receiving death threats for discussing a campaign that links government-backed violence, human rights violations, the Olympic Games, and the Chinese government. Especially when journalists, activists, and the Swedish Red Cross have been suffering worse, for years.

The alleged death threats were aimed at “a beyond-a-blog, commercial-laden delirium of heaven and hell for advertising addicts around the world, gossips about advertising stunts and marketing mishaps. The latest advertising news from a creative point of view served fresh daily since 2000″—barf—that builds buzz around such brilliant campaigns as Saatchi and Saatchi’s hilarious and spot-on campaign about human trafficking—in which humans were actually advertised for sale! My god the genius! It’s funny because it’s true! And also because it might have appeared first in the Onion!

The ads, for a Swedish Red Cross campaign, depict citizens being beaten, choked, attacked, and otherwise threatened by allegedly Chinese enforcers. Chinese ad enthusiasts and death-threateners, however, charge that the abusers are actually Nepalese. The images are accompanied by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games logos. Some can be seen here, but because the charming ad blog above has imprinted its own logo on the images, I’m not going to repost. Human rights violations and abuses of activists and journalists have been tied directly to the 2008 Olympic Games.

Apparently the Swedish Red Cross tired of the death threats and opted to remove the images from its own site. Because, one assumes, the Swedish Red Cross isn’t surprised when violating long-held Chinese mandates restricting press freedom results in death threats. But apparently, the ad world is.