Telstra has been offering its customers downloadable video clips posted by other users through its WotNext.com.au website, which was launched in January of this year as a venue for bands to post music videos and boost exposure.
Critics said, however, that 80 percent of the site’s most-viewed clips are "amateur porn" featuring partially or fully naked women, rather than the music videos the company had envisioned as its primary market.
"The film clips on the site treat young women as sex objects ... all delivered through a part-owned government communications provider," said Melinda Tankard Reist, director of the Women's Forum of Australia. "Any young woman viewing these clips gets the message all they're good for is to flaunt their bodies for boys."
"Telstra are commercially exploiting young people," Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway told The Daily Telegraph. "They're deliberately sexualizing young people in the most worrying way purely for commercial exploitation."
The site’s videos are uploaded by users in exchange for a 50 percent share of download revenues, which are available for $1 each without any age-verification mechanism.
"Some of the current videos and the descriptions on WotNext are an unintended consequence of the user generated site and fall short of community expectations," Telstra spokesman Peter Taylor said. "We share concerns by others and believe it has become a magnet for tasteless video graffiti and we will be undertaking a prompt review of guidelines for posting content."