FaceGloria: A Sin-Free Social Network

There’s a new site on the block which has been created by Evangelical Christians in Brazil who wanted to get in on social media whilst avoiding cursing, nudity and other things they don’t agree with.

www.telegraph.co.uk

The new site is called FaceGloria, which will be translated to FaceGlory for the English domain (which has already been bought). The month-old site has already attracted over 100,000 members and it all seems to be running rather smoothly.

Other than looking suspiciously like Facebook, featuring an “amen” button in place of a “like” button, the site seems to be a hit with Brazilians in the same Christian movement. However, for it to function the way it claims to, the site’s rules must be a little stricter than Facebook’s so let’s look into that, shall we?

• There are 600 forbidden words which cannot be posted. This is only Brazilian words at the moment, but as new sites are developed I can imagine the number of cuss-words will grow.
• No nudity is permitted, this includes bikini selfies.
• No alcohol or smoking is tolerated in any images.
• No blasphemy
• No gay material

There are probably more rules, but you get the gist, right?

Furthermore, the site is riddled with “moderators” whose job it is to keep this stuff from getting out in the community. But with more and more users joining every day, I can imagine it’s hard to filter out.

I do hope that no-ones first impression is: this is just a homophobic hate site, because it’s not. It looks like Facebook. Boring updates about people’s food, quotes everywhere, shared holiday pics (no bikinis though). 

These Christians are not creating a site where they can secretly slag the rest of us off. They just want a place where they don’t have to risk seeing things that offend them.

I would have imagined this was possible by just not accepting people you don’t like (or deem appropriate) on Facebook. But, hey ho, a whole new website was required for these guys.

Whilst I don’t agree with censorship nor do I share their opinions, I do hope that it doesn’t become Troll-city, just because of the media attention the site is getting.

For anyone to offend these evangelists when they’re trying to make their own space where they can upload pictures of Jesus without annoying us, well I’d just say it seems unfair and ironic.

I do hope that everyone else can just leave them be. There’s a whole lot of internet out there to explore. Why do we insist on ruining it for each other all the time? 

It's sad enough that we've had to revert back to good old fashioned segregation just to enjoy ourselves. The point of social media is to mingle together, not make 101 different sites. Will there be sites for different countries, different hair colours, different preferences next?   

Who knows!?

Ummaland, a similar network for Muslims launched over 2 years ago and has 329k members – so if that’s been left to run the way it was intended, then there is a chance for FaceGloria.

Megan Herdson

Megan is a country girl who moved to the city with some big dreams. She is studying her MA in Creative Writing whilst also managing an American Football Team.  She loves her blog and wants nothing more than to have her words read. That and to win the Championship, obviously. Follow her @MeganAtSMF

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