Telstra Turns Tail, Bans Adult Content from BigPond Service

AUSTRALIA—Despite having offered the content for at least a decade, Australian telcom Telstra has buckled under criticism from social retrogrades promoting a "neuter the adult" agenda, and has decided to cease offering what is being called "soft porn" content on its Bigpond service. The offending material is actually rated above MA15+, which is officially defined as content that "contains material that is considered unsuitable for exhibition by persons under the age of 15. Persons under said age may only legally purchase, rent, exhibit or view MA15+ rated content under the supervision of an adult guardian. The content is strong in impact." In other words, kids can legally watch it if an adult is present. The MA15+ classification was introduced in 1993 to fill in the gap between the M rating (recommended for mature audiences but not deemed too strong for young viewers) and the R18+ rating (restricted to 18 and over). It came about following complaints about films such as Silence of the Lambs, which was thought to be too strong for the M rating but not deserving of an R18+. However it's sliced, we're not talking about visually explicit content but the sort of fare that can often be seen late at night on regular television and certainly on cable. Indeed, Telstra itself refers to the content in question simply as "glamour." Despite the relatively innocuous nature of the stuff, however, Telstra CEO David Thodey notified his staff by way of a April 11 newsletter that he had made the decision after receiving emails from, as The Age put it, "customers who disliked adult-oriented movies or videos that objectified women." The Telstra head responded to the complaints with all of the backbone of a worm. ''I have to agree,'' he said. ''We have therefore decided that we will no longer promote access to adult-oriented content through our websites.'' Adding that ''we cannot support anything that is sexist or that is inconsistent with our values," he also wrote that Telstra is ''in many ways Australia's largest family company. We are owned by more than a million Australian families, many of our customers are Australian families and family businesses. And we have – through the Telstra Foundation and our corporate citizenship efforts – dedicated ourselves to promoting Australia's cultural diversity, including gender diversity, through initiatives such as the Telstra Business Women's Awards." All of that is a bunch of bunk, of course. According to the Age, "The issue came to light when ''concerned citizen' Ruth Limkin—an occasional columnist with Brisbane's Courier-Mail—was prompted by a media report to write directly to Mr Thodey. On March 6, Collective Shout, the activist group that campaigns against pornography and the sexualisation of children, added its voice." Ah, so a concerned Courier-Mail columnist instigated this parental revolt, similar to the way the U.K.'s Daily Mail has been instigating a "campaign for an automatic block on online porn" in that country. The Herald Sun reports that the process to clean up all the "smut" should be completed by Mid-May. Not a good day all the way around for freedom of sexual speech in Australia, but a great day for the censors! Nice going, English-speakers. You are well on your way to reducing your public sphere to that which is appropriate only for the schoolyard.