from www.theage.com.au – TELSTRA has bowed to pressure from anti-pornography campaigners and removed salacious content, previously available to stream and/or download for a fee, from its Big Pond service.

In a newsletter issued to staff on April 11, Telstra chief David Thodey [pictured] wrote that he had recently received emails from customers who disliked adult-oriented movies or videos that objectified women.

”I have to agree,” he said. ”We have therefore decided that we will no longer promote access to adult-oriented content through our websites.”

Mr Thodey put the decision ”in context” by pointing out that the content – which included titles such as Dirty Housewives – was ”mild” by comparison.

Telstra has told The Age that none of this content – which the organisation referred to as ”glamour” rather than ”soft-core porn” – was rated above MA15+. It was, however, available through a web page that also pointed to children’s content, with links to Playboy sitting on the same menu line as those to Go Diego Go.

Mr Thodey informed his staff that Telstra had decided to remove such content because ”we cannot support anything that is sexist or that is inconsistent with our values”.

Telstra told The Age soft-porn content has been available for streaming and/or download through BigPond (for $10 a month or $3 an ad-hoc viewing) for at least a decade.

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.

Telstra’s decision was first revealed to Limkin in a letter from Mr Thodey.

On April 23, she published the text of his letter to staff on her blog, breadandjustice.com, and praised the decision.

”We celebrate your good corporate citizenship,” she wrote. ”You have provided an example we can point to of corporations who put people before profits.” Both Limkin and Collective Shout have urged their supporters to ”submit positive feedback” on Telstra’s website.

Telstra has not revealed what the removal of the offending content will cost in terms of revenue. But it confirmed that the positive feedback so far had significantly outweighed the negative comments that prompted the move.