Ad Agency Turns 13 Homeless Men Into Wi-Fi Hotspots

13 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone in Culture, Politics, Tech/Sci, Very Cool, Vibe, World

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Advertising agency BBH has come under fire for their turning 13 homeless men walking Wi-Fi hotspots at the recent SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. The “Homeless Hotspots” sported shirts saying, “I’m a 4G hotspot,” with an access code for the network.

Although in BBH’s defence, I guess, all donations for the service — made via PayPal — went to the men themselves.

The project immediately drew criticism from SXSW attendees, some of whom called it “disturbing” and “offensive,” or thought it might be a hoax.

Says BBH’s Saneel Radia, who came up with the campaign:

The worry is that these people are suddenly just hardware, but frankly, I wouldn’t have done this if i didn’t believe otherwise. We’re very open to this criticism.

Hoo.

[Source: Slashdot]

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