Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory was the subject of a "destructive" online campaign after landing in the crosshairs of an Australian-based anti-sexploitation movement.

The popular Junee business was approached by Collective Shout, an organisation that lobbies against the objectification of women, earlier this month.

Collective Shout said that if it refused to remove the 'Bottle of Boobs' chocolates from sale, thousands of the organisation's supporters would be encouraged to denounce the product.

Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory started production of the breast-shaped chocolates in 2007, with some proceeds donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

The factory's owner Neil Druce said that what followed felt like an "attack" on the business rather than the product.

The business was bombarded with emails, phone calls and social media messages accusing it of dehumanising women, and even alleging it had exploited a staff member with Down syndrome.

It is unclear whether all users were formally associated with Collective Shout, but comments on the factory's Facebook page were published at the same time the campaign was active.

"They took it to another level and it became very, very destructive," Mr Druce said. "For us, it revealed exactly who they are, that they don't care about other people, but they want to cause trouble."

Mr Druce said the situation had only galvanised his customers and staff against those who took aim at his business.

"Some of our customers have been asking 'can we get a whole lot of these because we really believe in them' and 'please don't stop just because of those people'," he said.

"But then our staff, it's increased their loyalty because their jobs and their lifestyle were [under] threat."

Critics of the product argued it depicted disembodied breasts for "literal consumption" and was dehumanising women.

Collective Shout director Melinda Tankard Reist rejected claims that the campaign overstepped the mark, stating "strong issues reply a strong response".

She said her organisation encourages supporters to direct complaints to certain companies, however, it cannot control how their supporters chose to do so.

"We invite supporters, if they'd like to, to make a complaint directly to the company, or to post a comment on their Facebook page, Instagram, whatever they feel they'd like to do," she said.

"We can't micromanage what our thousands of supporters do, nor what individuals unconnected to us in any formal sense may do. People who feel strongly may comment in ways that we don't encourage."

Pop culture studies expert Dr Benjamin Nickl from the University of Sydney said how organisations choose to wield their influence is a conversation worth having "soon and urgently".

He described social media campaigns as having the ability to create moral outrage, which can escalate to online bullying and cancel culture.

"Knowing that there's this attention device out there set on cancel is causing [people] to self-censor what may need no censorship at all to begin with," he said.

"We mustn't forget, they [Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory] have a right to put the product out as long as it complies with all legal conditions put in place."

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