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New US phone network for Christians to block porn and gender-related content
- Redster 5mo agoI am glad someone is doing something like this. Very cool to see a free market solution. I do wonder, how will they handle Instagram, Youtube, and X.com, the everything (incl. porn!) app?
- joe_mamba 5mo ago>I am glad someone is doing something like this. Looked into the profile of the guy doing this and there isn't anything remotely "Christian" about him, he's just your average sleazy media exec trying to milk a specific demographic of gullible customers. He even admits it himself. So he's the last person in the world I'd trust to deliver something "Christian" for Christians. Similar how the dating app Christian Mingle isn't owned or run by Christians, which should be your first alarm bell in case you were looking for such a thing.
- xvxvx 5mo agoThat ISPs don’t allow content blocking by subscribers has always surprised me. Workplaces handle it but not homes?
- zimpenfish 5mo ago> That ISPs don’t allow content blocking by subscribers has always surprised me. Some UK providers do[0] [0] https://www.broadband.co.uk/broadband/help/parental-controls-and-network-safety https://www.broadband.co.uk/broadband/help/parental-controls...
- amanaplanacanal 5mo agoInteresting. I assumed that cellular providers were common carriers. Who knows under this administration though.
- landl0rd 5mo agoSince it's an MVNO they can probably get away with this, no? They are not allocated any of the fixed, monopoly-prone resources like spectrum that make such rules necessary. The satanists can I suppose go start an MVNO that allows nothing but lbgt and pornography if they wish.
- Leonard_of_Q 5mo ago> Who knows under this administration though. That does not add anything of interest so you might as well leave it out unless you use it as an identity flag. There's plenty of 'special' mobile subscriptions with all sorts of filtering options. Most target parents who want their children to be able to do A but not B or C, some - like this one - target other groups.
- amanaplanacanal 5mo agoThere is previous history around the Trump administration, common carrier status for Internet providers, and net neutrality.
- Leonard_of_Q 5mo agoThere is previous history with most administrations on this subject, e.g. the 'Biden' administration abused CISA to force social media companies to taking action against speech protected by the First Amendment. Obama abused the espionage act to prosecute whistleblowers and waged a campaign against journalists who used leaked material, setting a pattern which continues to this day through both 'democrat' as well as republican administrations. This is not a 'current administration' issue but a 'government' issue no matter the colours they present.
- nerdsniper 5mo agoSo, Andrew Tate videos would be blocked for talking about male gender roles? I don’t understand why we are replacing “LGBT Content” with “Gender Content” in formal vocabulary.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- 2ndorderthought 5mo agoIt sounds less bigoted. It's not less bigoted. It sounds that way though.
- sdsd 5mo agoMost conservative Christians (at least the ones I know in LDS and evangelical circles) would be very uncomfortable with their kids watching Andrew Tate videos, yes.
- ceejayoz 5mo agoTheir voting records don’t seem to bear that theory out.
- spwa4 5mo agoOne of the central tenets of democracy is that NOBODY knows anyone else's voting records. Even politicians are not allowed to reveal who they're voting for (meaning they can't show the paper. They can talk about it afterwards, but for all you know e.g. Trump voted for Harris). I've always known people involved with the Christian community to be opposed against all extreme political parties, left and right (and long ago against anarchists, mostly against greens, ...). If they are rightist, they won't be nearly far enough right to support Andrew Tate and the like. You don't know and can't know if being Christian and voting rightist overlaps or not. Only the general area is known. Nothing more.
- ceejayoz 5mo ago
- themacguffinman 5mo agoSeems pretty high effort compared to a content blocker mobile app or native parental controls. I'm not sure why anyone would get this.
- sikozu 5mo agoThis is such an extreme thing to do, there must be a better way. Why can't religion coexist alongside societal progress? From my (limited) understanding of the Bible, as it was translated and translated over the years to our common, modern languages a lot of it has been adjusted, and these adjustments don't align with the original text. Perhaps it needs to be changed further. I would love for people to have a religion to believe in, which does fulfill them without going against current and future societal values and norms.
- deneb150 5mo agoThere's barely anything in the bible about all the societal stuff relgious people freak out about. The bible isn't the problem.
- wat10000 5mo agoThere are plenty of progressive Christians who remember that Jesus’s most important command was to love your neighbor. The better question is, why are these fundamentalists so successful at co-opting the word “Christian”? Why does “Christian phone network” mean one that blocks homosexual content rather than one that donates 10% of revenue to feed the poor?
- landl0rd 5mo agoIdeally a Christian cell phone network would do both. It would also provide only healthy foods in the office and encourage fitness (gluttony and sloth are sinful), prohibit working on Sundays, and encourage policies to steward our world. It would control off-hours demands for those who are married and have children, and therefore have family obligations to which they must see, and might hold mixers for its singles to encourage family formation. It would expect humility and servant-leadership from its executives and patience from its managers. I would prefer to do business with such a network but one does not exist. Apparently, people do not believe there's much market demand for any but the first of these. This is similar to the church itself, which tends increasingly towards alignment with one faction or another. In turn, it becomes blind to the sins of its own and focused wholly on the sins of its schmittian enemy. The conservative church will tell you of the sins of homosexuality but not obesity nor wrath; the liberal will tell you that insufficient love is sinful while ignoring transsexuality. I find neither particularly Christian. Perhaps the Benedictines could run an MVNO. I am no catholic but they'd probably do a much better job.
- KnuthIsGod 5mo ago"‘You’re a traitor!’ yelled the boy. ‘You’re a thought criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporize you, I’ll send you to the salt mines!’ Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Thought-criminal!’, the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters." – George Orwell
- axus 5mo agoHappy to have the market solve a problem, providing an opt-in solution for people who want it. Somehow porn doesn't show up in my web-browsing either, funny how that works.
- anothereng 5mo agoactually sometimes you're in a normal website and there is an porn ad at the bottom.
- KumaBear 5mo agoNever seen this unless I’m on some shady sites. So have zero clue what you are talking about. We see you
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoYeah, me neither. I mean I've seen models with busty substances covered in pretty sheer bikini tops… which might be pornographic for some. But that's the extent of it.
- smt88 5mo agoThat's never happened to me in nearly 40 yrs of web browsing
- anonymousiam 5mo agoI've seen this happen, but not after I began using pihole, NoScript, and UBlock Origin. (More than 10 years ago.)
- anothereng 5mo agothat's true ever since I use an ad blocker I haven't seen it. But I remember seeing it before. Either way most people don't use ad blockers as far as I know.
- arvid-lind 5mo ago
- SilverElfin 5mo agoCouldn’t you just do parental controls on the phones you own for yourself or your kids
- AndrewKemendo 5mo agoNow we’re talking Affinity groups using technology to reject social norms is absolutely the future The techno-balkanization will be televised! The follow on compression will be really crazy.
- gitowiec 5mo agoThis is Opus Dei's work and it's no good for the USA
- beardyw 5mo agoI take the assumption to be that Christians are somehow not able to resist porn by their own efforts?
- declan_roberts 5mo agoI think that statement describes a wide swath of non Christians as well.
- pixl97 5mo agoI don't think it's the general ability or inability to stop watching porn that is in question. It's their righteous indignation that you're going to hell if you do that, so they'll gladly set up a theocratic nanny state of nationalist Christians to protect your every thought.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- dgellow 5mo agoYou can lookup global and per state pornhub searches, it’s no secret that religious places are consuming a lot of it
- bdangubic 5mo agonot just a lot of it, most of it
- zulux 5mo agoTV watching was detrimental to my life, so rather than be tempted by it, I just threw it in the trash. In behavioral therapy it's called stimulus control.
- array_key_first 5mo ago[dead]
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- peter-m80 5mo agoUSA is a joke now
- xedrac 5mo agoCompared to who?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- jqpabc123 5mo ago“Fisher says he’s recruited a mix of Christian influencers to advertise the plan and has also done outreach to thousands of churches ..." Religion is the world's oldest con --- and this is yet another example of how it can be used to fleece the faithful. The only thing that prevents me from getting involved in something like this is my non-Christian morals.
- kiriberty 5mo agoWelcome to Iran 2.0
- add-sub-mul-div 5mo agoWhat an unserious life philosophy, not approaching unfamiliar things with curiosity.
- bastard_op 5mo agoIt sounds like the great firewall of god that is meant to prevent all sins. In theory it's probably just a content filtering service, same as most enterprises do, but with a spin for godly sheep to flock to. Not a bad idea really if you have kids, as the alternative is basically spyware on your kids phone, and today it's somewhat trivial to build your own MVNO off a mainstream network like this. Would I ever trust it? About as much as I'd ever trust a priest around my kid, which is never.
- anothereng 5mo agoand yet you would trust a teacher around your kid which has higher rates of pedos than priests.
- Retric 5mo agoThat may have been a knock on religion rather than a pedo issue. However, school systems also try and avoid teachers and kids being alone together. A pedo in a room of 30 kids isn’t likely to do anything.
- dlev_pika 5mo agoThe marketing targeting is going to be insane
- duskdozer 5mo agoFinally, perse/per/pers time to shine! Hmm, I think the gender-people have also started using "they" and "them", maybe use þey and þem as true, non-gender-related substitutes?
- VariousPrograms 5mo agoTo fill the gap left by all the sites being blocked, the company intends to offer access to a library of religious content, including AI-generated Bible videos. Truly a serious and spiritual company. Maybe you can chat with AI Jesus instead of going to PornHub.
- Backslasher 5mo agoThis reminds me of a similar offering in Israel (Kosher Cellular Phone) for Orthodox jews. Hebrew wiki: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%A8 https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A8... It has restricted internet, and allows calls and messages only to / from other "Kosher" lines and specific whitelisted numbers as approved by a rabbinical committee. They also have some bastardized support for Whatsapp with a limited ability to join groups (not sure how that's implemented)
- anonymousiam 5mo agoDoes it work during Shabbat?
- jackyinger 5mo agoKind of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode
- jiriro 5mo agoThis would be great for Duolingo. Sure they don’t serve porn but their gender content lack of nuance sucks.
- newsy-combi 5mo agoWhere is the "as a company they can do what they want and if you don't like it, don't buy it" crowd when you need them? Stuck defending Google, Micrososft and Apple, I guess.
- feb012025 5mo agoI find myself particularly suspicious of efforts block content on the internet these days
- theturtle 5mo ago[dead]
- ausbah 5mo agoon a totally personal level as a queer person it’s really really really depressing that some groups of ppl resort to stuff like this. yeah freedom of expression, religion, and everything but to be so hateful towards a group to want to just erase them your everyday line of sight is just like :(
- rsynnott 5mo agoPresumably not suitable for Catholics, as it would block catechism 239 (https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section_two/chapter_one/article_1/paragraph_2_the_father.html https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section... - WARNING: Contains gender.)
- rolph 5mo agothere used to be a vaudville like gag.. "hey mama, [some sort of transgressional statement]." " aahh, where did you get such ideas! just for that i want you to memorize 3 chapters of the bible!" "mama, the bible is where i got that idea!"
- fuckinpuppers 5mo agoThe premise is kind of nice, an opt-in solution for that audience. However, a lot of those people could benefit from not being in a faux Christian echo chamber, just like their tv on Fox News 24/7 already.
- eudamoniac 5mo agoWhy does it inspire anger/mockery in so many people in this thread for some other people to choose not to see porn?