Ellen Page, Cisco, and the China Connection

Watching commercials sometimes gets me annoyed and rarely gets me angry. Most of the time, I just try and zone out as to not be influenced into buying something I don’t need.  This is not the case with the recent ads from Cisco featuring popular young actress Ellen Page. Not only do these commercials annoy with their cheesiness, fail to actually present a product I might want to buy, but they ironically make light of the human rights violations the company is perpetrating in their cooperation with the oppressive government of China.

The two main Cisco advertisements I have seen are: 1) where she goes to a classroom in her hometown and meets kids who are going on a virtual field trip to China and 2) where the small town’s city hall has a police control center with video screens connected to local surveillance cameras. Read more »