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Futurism: Churches Using "Shameware" Apps to Make Sure Members Don't Watch Porn

China

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China

China

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CHURCHES USING "SHAMEWARE" APPS TO MAKE SURE MEMBERS DON'T WATCH PORN

 

An evangelical Southern Baptist church known as Gracepoint was caught relying on a little more than God’s watchful gaze to keep an eye on members of its congregation. And if a church feels compelled to clarify that it’s not a cult, well…

 

New members joining Gracepoint’s congregation are asked to install an app called Covenant Eyes, which is explicitly marketed as an "anti-pornography" app. And according to a must-read investigation by Wired, Covenant Eyes spies on members’ web traffic, takes a screenshot of their phone screens every single minute, and then sends all this information to an "accountability partner." In reality, it's more like spyware.

 

One member who has since left the congregation told the magazine that they received accusatory emails from Gracepoint which contained eerily detailed reports of his digital activity, ranging from everything to his mundane browsing habits to even flagging a search of the hashtag "#Gay."

 

Covenant Eyes is part of a broader but lesser known spectrum of apps known as "shameware," used by religious groups and parents to, yes, shame people into dropping porn habits and other "immoral" activity.

 

But as it turns out, Wired found that these apps, namely Covenant Eyes as well as Accountable2You, are doing a lot more than monitoring users’ porn habits. They're also reportedly abusing accessibility permissions — special permissions for features that are meant to help out persons with disabilities use the devices — on phones to surveil virtually everything a user does with them. That includes the aforementioned screenshot capturing, collecting every visited website, and logging which apps are opened.

 

Click on the link for the full article

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Spaceman Spiff

Spaceman Spiff

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This is pretty disturbing.  My initial thought is to feel sorry for these people. And I do, from the perspective that...I'm sure there are people in that congregation who are smart and successful in whatever their chosen profession is, but they're duped by something like this.  Everyone has blind spots but...jeez.  

 

And yeah, you know the church higher-ups are all "do as I say, not as I do" when it comes to this.

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gbear

gbear

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I was watching The Life of Brian with my son yesterday (both in COVID isolation in our basement).  I was struck remembering how it made it on the banned list of movies for the Catholic Church and how much it made me enjoy the movie in high school.  I liked the Holy Grail movie, but I am not sure I would have ever seen the movie without it being on the banned list.  For what it's worth, the movie is still funny, and my son liked it too.

 

The best part though was hearing my wife yelling at my youngest son up stairs for being his usual stubborn rebellious self while she was trying to cook.  She was going off yelling at him while this was playing on the TV:

Note, we both found the movie's humor to have mostly aged well.  I thought it was fascinating to look at from the 2020's perspective. There was a bit on a man who wanted to be a woman which I could still hear today (though science has made much more possible than was available in 1979 when the film was made).  I was surprised to notice black face in the 3 kings coming for Jesus but finding Brian.  I never noticed when I watched in high school, but my awareness of such things has changed a lot in the 30+ years since I first saw the movie.   I was also surprised by full frontal nudity of both men and women, but I think that just goes to how prudish we have become.  All in all, I really enjoyed re-watching the movie because the humor is still excellent.

Edited by gbear
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Simmsy

Simmsy

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On 9/30/2022 at 6:40 AM, ixcuincle said:

Would it apply to something like Game of Thrones or film nudity

 

Anyway restricting against nudity is dumb. Nudity is a prt of life. They can take my porn from my cold dead hands

 Or my warm, sticky hands!

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Renegade7

Renegade7

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On 9/27/2022 at 5:53 PM, Simmsy said:

Wow, another reason to not go to church. Now, I going to take my phone into the broom closet and not repent about it later.

 

I'm even less concerned about this becoming a major trend given even the secular private sector is seeing right through this BS:

 

From OP article:

 

Quote

Google took down both Covenant Eyes and Accountable2You from the Google Play store after Wired presented the company with its findings, deeming the apps to be in violation of its policies. However, they’re still available on iOS.

 

If my church or any church required me to put this on my phone, I'd immediately ask what verse in the Bible this requirement is coming from...

 

On 9/25/2022 at 4:46 AM, Renegade7 said:

Ain't no apps in the Bible...

 

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