The growing concern that Facebook is becoming a haven for violence, pornography, and profanity has triggered a group to come up with a Christian alternative.
Facegloria.com is a new social media network or website launched in Brazil that aims to provide a sin-free alterative to Facebook. It was conceptualized by an Evangelical Christian group which according to them has already gained about 100,000 members in its first month of activity.
One of its makers Atilla Barros says that Facegloria is a response to the growing concern that Facebook is becoming a haven for violence, pornography, and profanity. It’s a website where people can only discuss positive things; on love, about God, and sharing His word.
Guys, I made an account na on the sin free Facebook, FaceGloria. Add niyo na ako and let's live a life without sin.
— PGI Marlon (@irdactormarlon) July 12, 2015
The website automatically forbids the use of 600 negative words and to further police the website of profanity, violence, sexual, and gay content, there’s a team of volunteers acting as moderators. One of the notable features of the website is the “Amen” button which replaces the conventional “Like” button of Facebook.
Because of its success in Brazil, the website owners plan to make it available in all countries and languages opening it to the global Evangelical Christian population. Currently, the site is only available in Portuguese and one of the immediate plans is to launch a mobile version wherein the group hopes to attract more users.
Although Brazil is largely a Catholic country, it has witnessed the increase of Evangelical Christian population in the recent years. And if the trend would continue, the Christian community can eventually become a major religion in South America in the coming decades.
Religion and technology often intertwine
According to the computer programmer John Graham-Cumming, Facegloria is just one of the examples as to how technology and religion intertwines. A similar social network site for Muslims Ummaland.com was earlier launched in 2013 with almost the same features and goals. Religious symbols are also prevalent in certain computer programs or languages like Pearl. And there’s even a computer operating system TempleOS that is inspired by the Solomon Temple featuring numerous religious quotes and references.