When one of our supporters came across an Instagram ad marketing child sex abuse dolls available for purchase, she went straight to Ad Standards to lodge a complaint. Not only did the doll seller account promote the sale of replica little girls for men’s sexual use, it is illegal to advertise these products in Australia.

Days later, she received a response from Ad Standards informing her they would not be reviewing the child sex abuse doll advertisement. Why?

The Australian Federal election is Saturday May 3. This is an opportunity to make our key concerns known to almost 700 candidates wanting to secure your vote!

At Collective Shout we are non-partisan. But we do want to know if candidates - of whatever political stripe - care about the issues we do. And then cast our votes accordingly.

To assist you in casting your vote we have prepared five key questions for you to put to your candidates:

• Do you commit to supporting age verification to help protect children from p*rn and not allow the vested interests of the global p*rn industry to undermine the current trial?
• Do you support tighter regulations on Big Tech/social media platforms to hold them accountable for the harms they have caused, especially to young people?
• Do you support laws to stop the creation and dissemination of AI-enabled Deepfake Image Based Sexual Abuse and a global ban on nudifying and undressing apps? 
• Will you take action to tighten up Australia’s classification laws to stop explicit material including torture p*rn-themed graphic novels/comics to be in easy access of children including in public libraries?
• Will you support a new inquiry into advertising self regulation given frequent violation of the ad code of ethics and no penalties for non-compliance meaning more children are exposed to p*rnified depictions of women in public spaces? 

You can find all the background information you’ll need to make the case to your candidates here.

Two Honey Birdette porn themed ads found in breach of ad ethics

*Content warning

It’s March-madness and mixed rulings at Ad Standards, with the self regulator reviewing 5 Honey Birdette porn and bondage themed ads in a month. And these are just the ones we know about.

Ad Standards will no longer consider complaints against depictions of women in sheer lingerie.

In response to a complaint regarding a Bras N Things shopfront advertisement featuring a woman in a see-through bra, Ad Standards told the community member who objected that the ad would not be reviewed by the Panel.

“What’s ‘Kinkmas’, Mummy?” This is the kind of question parents might be fielding from their young children in family shopping centres this Christmas, thanks to Honey Birdette’s BDSM-themed shopfront advertising.

When adults deliberately expose children to adult, sexualised and pornographic content, this is known as grooming. Honey Birdette’s grooming of children is made possible through the collaboration and support of the shopping centres that host them.

Family mall sex store racks up new violations for 'exploitative' and 'overtly sexual' ads

*Content warning (Note: These larger-than-life shop window ads were shown to children in family shopping centres across the country)

Honey Birdette was found in breach of advertising Code of Ethics nine times in a single month. It's a new record for the Playboy-owned and Westfield resident sex store chain.

What's the point of an ad regulator that can randomly refuse to review ads?

When a sponsored Typo post advertising Christmas ornaments in the shape of a penis and a sex toy showed up in Collective Shout supporter Susan’s Facebook feed, she made a complaint to Ad Standards.

Typo's penis-shaped Christmas ornaments 

But Ad Standards did not consider Susan’s complaint against the unsolicited penis ornament ad. She received an email notifying her that the Chair of the Ad Standards Community Panel had refused to forward the complaint to the panel for review. 

The sex store can throw out words like “strength”, “confidence” and “autonomy” all they want (sounds like someone has been using a thesaurus!) but it doesn’t make them true

After two more porn-themed ads upheld by Ad Standards, sex store defends its objectification of women for profit

Ad Standards has upheld complaints against two more porn-themed ads by Playboy-owned sex store Honey Birdette, with complaints now upheld against more than 80 separate ads.

A local community member made a complaint to Ad Standards over two different ads at Lakeside Joondalup, one featuring a woman in sheer lingerie pulling down her bra strap, and the other featuring a woman in sheer lingerie reclining while pushing her breasts together. Read the case report here. 

Porn themed ads which present women as objects to an audience that includes children. We are battling a scourge of violence against women and sexual grooming of children. I object to this company contributing to a culture which normalises these harms in my community.

Ad Standards upholds complaints against sexist ads

If you thought that by the year 2024 we would have moved past using women’s objectified bodies to sell unrelated products, you would be mistaken!

We were recently alerted to a Victorian hot sauce brand, Pickle My Chili, doing just that.

Days after we exposed sex store Honey Birdette’s 74^th advertising ethics violation, our campaign on the failures of ad industry self-regulation has attracted national media attention.