As if Facebook wasn't already pretty strict about censoring naughty content, now there's a Facebook alternative where even your devout grandmother won't feel scandalized. Evangelical Christians in Brazil came together to create the ultimate uber-Christian-friendly Facebook version where everything 'sinful' is banned, which for them includes homosexuality.
The aptly named Facegloria has apparently managed to get 100,000 members since its inception a month ago, its creators claim. At this point, the site is in Portuguese only, but there are plans to include other languages soon and the relevant domains have apparently already been bought.
No other country in the world has as many Roman Catholics as Brazil. Facegloria was created by Evangelical Christians which usually take the bible even more at face value than Catholics, so there's no guarantee that your average Christian will feel at home on this site.
The staggering amount of 600 forbidden words shows us what a sinful world we appear to live in nowadays where there are so many less than godly words to choose from. As a rather endearing touch the social network site comes with an Amen button instead of a like button.
Facegloria's web designer Atilla Barros explains some of the motivation for creating this cleaner-than-clean Facebook alternative to AFP in this way: "On Facebook you see a lot of violence and pornography. That's why we thought of creating a network where we could talk about God, love and to spread His word."
What he didn't mention is that, according to the worldview of him and his three co-founders, homosexuality is a no-no in this godly world of theirs too.
To ensure a state of ultimate sinless-ness, a host of moderators - disappointingly, they aren't calling themselves inquisitors - monitor the site for any mention of swear words, sex, violence, homosexuality or criticizing of religious leaders. Even the appearance of alcohol and tobacco is not always deemed acceptable here. You can basically hear the angels sing on this site. It is doubtful that much else of interest will be going on here though, an environment where you have to watch your every word.
In case you want to stir things up, Facegloria doesn't pick up on English swear words so far, therefore allowing sinfulness in through the backdoor.
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