'Telstra Babes': Why is the telco hosting porn?

Just the latest example of the mainstreaming of pornography

‘The "Telstra Babes" content is just a few clicks away from the "Women at Telstra" recruitment website, which describes the company's "inclusive working environment" for women and its culture that "celebrates the success of women at every level"’.

This piece by James Frost in The Australian last week provides further evidence of the encroaching of pornography into the mainstream. Our major telecommunications company is now in the porn business, offering and profiting from Playboy and Girls Gone Wild.

If you are a Telstra shareholder why not let the company know that you didn’t buy shares to invest in the company’s porn-for-profit venture? And if you’re a Telstra customer, let the company know that this isn’t your idea of corporate social responsibility. You can contact Telstra here.

Telstra's soft-porn site under fire

by James Frost

IN another sign that Telstra is not the boring government-owned phone utility it once was, the company now offers softcore pornography over video-capable mobile phones.

Telstra mobile users can watch videos with titles such as Dirty Housewife and Hot Asian Gets Wet for between $3.50 and $4.95 per viewing.

"We have a range of web pages offering different content for the many niche interest groups that make up our customer base," a Telstra spokeswoman said.

The "Telstra Babes" content is just a few clicks away from the "Women at Telstra" recruitment website, which describes the company's "inclusive working environment" for women and its culture that "celebrates the success of women at every level".

Author and anti-pornography campaigner Melinda Tankard-Reist said Telstra's attitude was disappointing and raised serious questions.

"This is a mainstream communications company," she said. "When did they make a decision to go down this path? Was it at a corporate level?"

Telstra won't reveal whether it pays for the content or whether it is paid for referring any of its 12 million mobile users to material produced by Playboy and Girls Gone Wild. The telco said warnings were displayed and that the content was relatively tame.

"We have stringent guidelines pertaining to all content across our sites and in particular, the 'glamour' pages, which are among the mildest in the category among industry providers," the spokeswoman said.

Ms Tankard-Reist rejected that defence and said the companies supplying content to Telstra had disturbing associations.

"Playboy isn't just your father's magazine under the bed any more," she said. "Playboy hosts a range of hardcore, explicit, triple-X content across a range of cable television channels. You couldn't even print the names of the titles they show.

"The Girls Gone Wild genre is harmful to women and girls and there have been allegations that girls have been made drunk to coerce them into filming sex acts or simulated sex acts for the camera.

"Shareholders would be surprised to know the company is hosting and distributing pornographic content. It's a significant issue for its reputation."

As published at Melinda Tankard Reist's blog.