Groupon SA re-evaluating policy on porn

Internet discount coupon company, Groupon South Africa is re-evaluating its policy on “adult content”, says head of sales  Gary Burrows.

Meanwhile the company is not accepting new “adult-content merchants”, nor looking to develop that area of its business, he says in a statement released in response to questions from Gateway News. Last week we reported that Groupon SA was promoting a special on the Playboy South Africa magazine at a time when Groupon in the United States had apparently stopped porn campaigns as a result of Christian consumer action.

At the time of publishing this report the Playboy special is still listed among Groupon SA’s offerings, however, it would not be surprising to see it disappear soon, once the company has completed its re-evaluation. The US parent company has already set a precedent, and Christian activist organisations in South Africa have already stated that they will mount consumer boycott action if Groupon SA does not stop promoting pornography. In a letter to Groupon SA, Family Policy Institute director Errol Naidoo says: “Pornography often demeans and degrades women and reduces them to mere sex objects. In South Africa more than 55 000 women and 25 000 children are raped or sexually abused annually.

“We regard any company or organisation that promotes pornography as a contributor to the sexual degradation of women and children in society.”

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The full statement from Burrows reads: “At Groupon we are continuously testing different types of deals in the market and run deals that represent the interest of our consumer base. We are a platform where the consumer ultimately the consumer decides on the offering.

While we are not currently accepting new adult-content merchants, guidelines for what types of businesses we do and do not run are constantly re-evaluated on a local level by looking into our customer needs and recommendations.

Ahead of the outcome of this re-evaluation, please note that this is not an area of our business we are looking to develop.”

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