Brazilian Evangelicals Set Up a "Sin Free" Version of Facebook

An anonymous reader writes: With $16,000 and the help of the Mayor of Ferraz de Vasconcelos, the town he lives in, Atilla Barros and three other Evangelical Christians created Facegloria, a "sin-free" version of Facebook. Swearing is banned, along with about 600 other words, as well as any violent or erotic content, and depictions of homosexual activity. 100,000 users have signed up the first month. "In two years we hope to get to 10 million users in Brazil. In a month we have had 100,000 and in two we are expecting a big increase thanks to a mobile phone app," Barros says. Acir dos Santos, the mayor, adds: "Our network is global. We have bought the Faceglory domain in English and in all possible languages. We want to take on Facebook and Twitter here and everywhere."

Comments

All possible languages?

[Radak]

$ whois faceglory.fi
 
Domain not found

To be fair, Finnish is an impossible language.

Re:All possible languages?

[SuricouRaven]

Faceglory.jp also not found. They might want to get that one quickly.

Re:All possible languages?

[Radak]

I would have thought that was already a fetish site.

Re:All possible languages?

[Radak]

Fine.

$ whois kasvotkunia.fi
 
Domain not found

Re:All possible languages?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm excited for what's on offer at faceglory.cx

Re: All possible languages?

[John Allsup]

I wonder how much their idea of 'sin' resembles that of those people who wrote the various Bible passages with that word.

I can also imagine it backfiring when someone considers how appropriate faceglory could be as a name for a rather more naughty website.

Re:All possible languages?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Faceglory.jp also not found. They might want to get that one quickly.

For the sake of the Japanese - I hope not. Looks like the Kiwis will have to put up with them. Australians not so much (we've no shortage of fundamentalist god-botherers anyway).

Re:All possible languages?

[Radak]

If you want to be that nickpicky about something that was supposed to be a joke in the first place, I'll note that kasvotkunnia.com does not exist either (Faceglory's primary domain is a .com). And I'll also note that querying TLD registrar databases using the whois tool will return results for all domains that have been registered (i.e. bought), not just those that are, to use your word, "active".

Re:All possible languages?

[NotDrWho]

I feel so sorry for the poor SOB who has to try to censor the porn from the Japanese site. He'll be encountering shit that will shake his soul to the core.

'Faceglory'

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds a bit like some sort of sexual activity.

Re:'Faceglory'

[AmiMoJo]

It's interesting that they claim it will be free from sin, and yet also homophobic. Can't be both, either it treats everyone like a human being or it discriminates and the users are going to hell.

Must be kinda funny when they get up to the pearly gates and St. Peter's all like "you know God's son was gay, right? Where the heck did you get 'we should hate gays' from?"

Re:'Faceglory'

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and by the way, God's Son is God.

Are you saying that Jesus is his own father, as well as his own son?

Is it Gods all the way down? ;-)

Re:'Faceglory'

[Ol Olsoc]

"Hatred is a core value of conservative Christians."

Wow. You're possibly the meanest poster on /. And that's saying something.

That meanness has been earned. Strict Catholic parents with even stricter Southern Baptist Grandparents.

Remember, that as Catholics, My Grandparents knew we were going to hell. Ever wake up in the middle of the night with your Grandmother praying in tongues at the foot of your bed? Or spend an entire Sunday being preached at, looking out the window, and getting long winded explanations of just how God was going to punish me forever and ever for not paying rapt attention for my 10 hours of fun? Some times I felt like the character Squee (Jhonen Vasquez cartoon character of an innocent among horrible kooks) while growing up

So I have very little patience for the religious, especially the fundies. If that makes me mean, oh yeah - I'm mean.

Re:'Faceglory'

[cold fjord]

It's interesting that they claim it will be free from sin, and yet also homophobic. Can't be both, either it treats everyone like a human being or it discriminates and the users are going to hell.

That isn't so much interesting as confused. "Homophobia" is a contemporary political epithet used to attack people that don't accept various claims or goals of gay activists or the gay community whereas sin is violating God's law. Biblical morality considers some sexual conduct as sin, such a fornication (sex outside marriage), adultery (sex by married people with someone that they aren't married to), bestiality (sex with animals), and homosexual activity. God offers forgiveness of sin via the sacrifice made by Jesus to those who will accept it in faith, such as discussed here.

Adultery and homosexual activity are both considered serious sins. How did Jesus deal with an accused adulterer?

John 8

1but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap,in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,”Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

So they do treat people like human beings, but they plan to exclude depictions of openly sinful behavior. Redemption and renewal is available to those engaged in sin if they are open to it.

Internet without evangelicals = Win

[morcego]

Oh, I do hope they all move to facegloria, and leave us all alone.
Better yet, they should make an internet of their own.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[spiritplumber]

I'm very much nonreligious but approve of initiatives like the Christian State Project or Free State Project. As long as there's no secession/sedition, if people want to live a certain way, let them live that way. And maybe they'll come up with clever ideas that the rest of us can apply.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[Tablizer]

they should make an internet of their own.

RaptureNet

with pop-up ads that say, "Sinned too much? Stay out of Hell for just 7 easy payments of $49.95 a month! And for an extra $10.00 a month, we won't even tell your church! All diddling, screwing, lying, or cheating can be removed from your heavenly record Now Now Now!"

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[Tablizer]

Such is already happening with say Fox News, and all media for that matter. Before we only had a few media outlets available who served a kind of generic middle-of-the-road view because they had to cater to a wide audience. Now people can easily choose to see and hear only what they want, and the news media is niche-ifying.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[morcego]

You know what they say: Small churches, big business.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[Anonymous Coward]

You're obviously not familiar with the Cult of Reason during the French Revolution or the Cristero War in Mexico or the USSR anti-religious campaign.

Oh, you mean Christians haven't been persecuted here.

Well given the left's history, I'm sure they'll get around to it.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[ldobehardcore]

If I weren't an honest, god-mocking atheist, I'd be really tempted into selling online papal indulgences. But seeing as I'm a much better person without god than I ever was with a god belief, I'll just stick to mocking the religious's absurd assertions directly to their faces.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[Tablizer]

I couldn't find any solid evidence of your Cronkite claims. It appears to be unverified hearsay.

But even if it were true, that's just one news person. There were hundreds of others. One data point does not make a case.

I would note that Cronkite was generally neutral early in the war, but came to the conclusion it was a bad idea after a few years of covering it almost daily, and stated his change of opinion publicly.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[dave420]

Only because they refuse to do business with people based purely on bigotry. Kind of like how racists were hounded out of business when they too refused to do business with certain people. Ignoring that part kind of makes you sound like a vicious old fucker living in the past. That couldn't possibly be the case, right? :)

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[goose-incarnated]

they should make an internet of their own.

RaptureNet

with pop-up ads that say, "Sinned too much? Stay out of Hell for just 7 easy payments of $49.95 a month! And for an extra $10.00 a month, we won't even tell your church! All diddling, screwing, lying, or cheating can be removed from your heavenly record Now Now Now!"

You joke, but I (as a long-standing atheist) am quite curious to see how a facebook-for-evangelicals turns out. There are many questions that could be answered by examining faceglory(sp?). For example,

Evangelising, by definition, needs the target party to be a non-believer; what happens when the entire audience are believers? When you are literally preaching the message to the choir?

What happens in an echo chamber of significant size? Is there some madness event horizon that occurs when too many people do more socialising on godnet than on internet?

What would this madness event horizon look like? Does the group fracture? Wage war on another christian group?

For individual participants, does it reinforce the belief, reduce the belief or not affect belief at all?

For group participants, does regular participation reinforce the group structure?

Will it lead to more orthodox religious beliefs of the participants, or will they mostly just be another group with a shared belief.

etc etc etc

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[qe2e!]

I just had a friend lose a contract over the fact he worked with gay weddings. He actually made out like a bandit and got to keep a large deposit -- he donated it, posted his story of attempted persecution, and the story went viral and business is BOOMING. If you find a story of fundamental homosexuals beating up christian because he looked too square, I'd love to hear it.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that they tend to ignore the human rights of children in places like that. Cutting parts of their bodies off, refusing to give them a proper education, causing them mental illnesses with horrific stories and threats from X-rated books etc.

Children have rights and are not property. Religious people can do what they like, as long as their children's rights are respected.

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[AmiMoJo]

Making decisions like that on a case-by-case basis is impractical. More over, even if it is only a minor issue for the person buying the cake at that particular moment, it becomes a bigger issue if they find that they can't have their wedding in their home town because no-one will rent them a suit/dress, the local hotels won't rent twin beds to same sex couples, the local caterers won't cater their reception party etc.

That's why anti-discrimination laws are universal. Individual incidents might not be so bad for those affected, but they add up.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[AmiMoJo]

My expectation is that it will be quickly overrun by trolls. Some of them non-Christians, but many of them Christian trolls pushing an extreme view and harassing others with it. The Bible is so contradictory that you can find a way to interpret some bit of it to support pretty much any point of view, and then batter your opponent over the head with it and scream about them burning forever in the fires of hell etc. The best part is that your opponent is full of self doubt and loathing so won't just dismiss you as a troll in most cases.

For evidence, see current Christian groups on Facebook.

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[alexgieg]

participating in a gay wedding ceremony is very much against many people's reasonable interpretation of religious commandments.

Not, it's a blatant refusal to obey Jesus' extremely clear commandment:

"(...) whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. (...) Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; (...) And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?" (Matthew 5:39-47)

In other words, for the analogy-impaired, I'll rephrase the above:

"And whosoever shall compel thee to bake a cake, bake him twain."
"And whosoever shall compel thee to arrange them a bouquet, arrange them twain."
"And whosoever shall compel thee to take 100 photos, take 200."

And so on, and so forth.

Pretty clear, eh? Those refusing service to "sinners" aren't only breaking the law, and morals, and ethics, they are also themselves sinning against their God's will.

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[IMightB]

Ummm so what if they refuse service because their bigoted? I still occasionally, see stores with a "we reserve the right to refuse service for any reason". It's their right as a business owner.

If someone doesn't want to take your money in an honest transaction, go to someplace that will. I'm kinda on board with the idea that the LBGT crowd is engaging in a witch hunt with their newfound ascendency.

Re:Internet without evangelicals = Win

[Half-pint HAL]

You souns quite unpleasant. If that's you as a better person, I hate t imagine what you were like before.

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[geoskd]

Not really. Excluding someone from a restaurant they go by every day because of that person's race is a significant inconvenience for that person, yet serving black people isn't against anyone's reasonable interpretation of religious commandments. On the other hand, a baker who refuses to make a cake especially for a gay marriage causes a once-in-a-lifetime minor inconvenience for two people, yet participating in a gay wedding ceremony is very much against many people's reasonable interpretation of religious commandments.

The problem is that bigotry is enshrined in the religious belief. If ever there was an indication that religion is evil, that's it. A persons religious belief does not entitle them to engage in discrimination as part of their interactions with the world. Those that believe this to be acceptable behaviour need to be corrected. Failure to do so leads to two mutually incompatible religions squaring off and killing millions (That should sound familiar). One of the most fundamental tenets of many religions is exclusion and persecution. This is not always a direct facet of the religion itself, but is a fundamental aspect of human nature, and so many religious leaders use it to keep their flocks in line. The necessary consequence of this is bigotry, exclusion and ultimately war. Religion, as practiced, by the majority of the worlds population is an unconscionable excuse to exclude and discriminate, and should not be tolerated. I don’t give a damn what is written in any book or preached in any school, it doesn't give anyone the authority to deny me my rights.

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[linuxrocks123]

It was more than a little sad; it was wrong. Eich probably would have donated anonymously, but California didn't allow him to do so. Some assholes looked up his name on a government-published list and then just persecuted him for no reason other than they disagreed with his political views.

Those assholes are still gleefully twisting the knife. See here: https://twitter.com/hcatlin/st...

If SJW is ever an accurate way to describe a group of people, it is an accurate way to describe the vindictive assholes who went after Brendan Eich.

Re: Internet without evangelicals = Win

[Areyoukiddingme]

On the other hand, a baker who refuses to make a cake especially for a gay marriage causes a once-in-a-lifetime minor inconvenience for two people, yet participating in a gay wedding ceremony is very much against many people's reasonable interpretation of religious commandments.

Why is it persistently and erroneously phrased that way?

No gay couple has ever asked a baker to participate in a professional capacity in a gay wedding ceremony. No straight couple has either. The participants in the ceremony are the betrothed, their seconds, by whatever name (I've attended at least one wedding with a brides-man up at the front), some sort of minister, and possibly a ring bearer and a flower child. Nowhere in that list is there a baker. Nor is there cake involved. Wedding ceremonies are completely cakeless. There is a total and conspicuous lack of cake in the ceremony.

The baker usually doesn't even deliver the cake to the same building in which the ceremony took place. It's delivered somewhere else entirely. The cake is delivered to a party held after the ceremony. A party to which the baker is not invited. The baker is expected to deliver the cake and then leave. At no time is the baker expected to participate. The baker is expected to bake a fucking cake. That's what bakers do.

The fact that a tiny handful of bakers are elevating themselves, without invitation or justification, to the level of participant says to me that they're merely seizing an opportunity to be assholes.

Good luck to them

[greenreaper]

I'm sure Facebook will claims the use of the term "Face" infringes their trademark.

Seen this before.

[SuricouRaven]

The 'Christian version' is a pretty common concept.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw...

It'll fail, I expect, for the same reason that most social networks fail: They depend on users to draw users, so it's very hard to get them established. For every Facebook, there are thousand Orkuts.

Re:Seen this before.

[ldobehardcore]

Ironically enough, Orkut was VERY popular in Brazil for several years with millions of users.

Another POS website

[Anonymous Coward]

Just registered. No verification whatsoever and it accepted "qwerty" as the password. No https. Not a far fetch to think this site commits other basic security faux pas, too. Easy prey for hackers.

How does shit like this get publicity? It looks like a first project for someone just starting in web development.

Re:Another POS website

[catsRus]

Dont need no stinkin security, jesus is my IT guy, trolls and hackers will burn yada yada.................

Re:I can only prey

[SeaFox]

I don't think there's any reason to hunt them down.

"On Facebook you see a lot of violence and porn"

[Morpeth]

Hmmmm, really? They must be on a different FB, mine is filled with friends on vacation, pics of their kids, and kittens... lot and lots of kittens.

Sounds like they've been making a lot of effort into finding all this sinful porn and violence on FB...

Can we have one that bans silly bullshit?

[rebelwarlock]

Oh wait, it would be totally empty. Everything I've seen on facebook is usually some form of circle jerk. It's pretty much only useful for tracking my D&D session events at this point.

Re:Can we have one that bans silly bullshit?

[DerekLyons]

Everything I've seen on facebook is usually some form of circle jerk.

That's a problem with your friends, not intrinsic to Facebook.

Re:Blacklist, please!

[bickerdyke]

No matter what language it is in, it is not in "Brazilian"

Re:Brazilian evangelicals are for cows.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Nonononono... Once again you've failed to localise properly. Try this:

Vocês todos são vacas. Vacas dizer mú. MÚÚÚÚÚÚÚÚÚ! MÚÚÚÚÚÚÚÚÚÚ! Múúúúú vacas MÚÚÚÚÚ! Múúúú dizer as vacas. VOCÊ VACAS!!

This instalment of I18n For Today's Active Troll presented as a public service of the Slashdot Network and this station.

Atwood's Gilead?

[Overzeetop]

I mean, if you're going to go full religious nutjob, might was well make your own country.

I would think it was the gays

[Overzeetop]

What you see on FB reflects the kind of people you hang out with. My feed has been filled with God damned rainbows for two weeks.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

domains

[lkcl]

i'm surprised it's not called "faithbook.com"

Re:Brazilian evangelicals are for cows.

[TheDarkMaster]

For (useless or funny, your decide) information, never trust the google translator for grammar and spelling. where it says "vocês todos são vacas. vacas dizer mú", the correct form is "Todos vocês são vacas. Vacas dizem mú". The english->portuguese translation from Google is shit.

Re:Brazilian evangelicals are for cows.

[johanw]

It's probably still better than my own translation...