Australia's military has pulled its advertising from a website closely linked to the White House, after a woman complained the site promoted racism, sexism and homophobia.
Defence Jobs Australia withdrew its ads from Breitbart News, a far-right news and commentary publication that was, until recently, led by Donald Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
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The military's recruitment wing told its media-buying agency late last month to "remove the ad and prevent similar recruiting material from being displayed on this site in the future".
But it also acknowledged that the site's Australian readers could be among those it had targeted to recruit, because the online browsing history of Breitbart's audience matched "a defined data set, such as interests, age and demographic".
Mr Bannon was a founding director of the website and its executive chairman until last year, when he stepped down to run Mr Trump's presidential campaign.
Defence was coaxed into withdrawing its ads by community campaigners called Sleeping Giants, who say they stop "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic news sites by stopping their ad dollars".
A NSW government organisation, the Australian Museum, also removed its ads from Breitbart last month. A museum spokeswoman said the placement of its ad "was not in line with the [museum's] advertising strategy".
Breitbart is an extreme right-wing news outlet that has been criticised widely for publishing "fake news" and conspiracy theories, particularly articles that demonise immigrants.
![Donald Trump with his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who helped founded Breitbart News.](/web/20170301000840im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/2/t/u/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guiqby.png/1488243010353.jpg)
It promulgated the so-called "pizzagate" scandal – a rumour that Bill and Hillary Clinton were paedophiles – and, until recently, claimed Barack Obama was born in Africa and had hence became US president illegally.
A Defence Department spokesman said the military had no relationship with Breitbart and its ads had appeared on the site via a third party.
![The RAAF recruitment ad (bottom right) on the Breitbart website.](/web/20170301000840im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/i/t/3/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guiqby.png/1488243010353.jpg)
It had now placed Breitbart on a prohibited list along with "thousands of websites ... that contain offensive, explicit or inappropriate material".
The spokesman said Defence Jobs Australia's online advertising criteria required that the websites it used aligned with the military's "core values" and were visited regularly by potential recruits.
It avoided sites "aligned with political parties or [that] share extreme views", he said.
A spokeswoman for the Finance Department, which oversees Australian government advertising, said online ads were generally coordinated by its contracted media agency, Dentsu Mitchell.
"Through this arrangement, there are procedures in place to manage the placement of digital advertising to mitigate the risk of it appearing on inappropriate sites," the spokeswoman said.
Earlier this week, Breibart News' controversial editor, Milo Yiannopoulos, resigned from the job after an old video of him apparently endorsing paedophilia was circulated on the internet.
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