Thursday, September 22, 2011

Social Media Sites Censor Christian Content

Social media sites allow every concerned individual (let alone - a group ) to reach out to a practically unlimited audience. However, as the new study shows, some groups appear to be less equal than others. Guess which ones:
According to the study, seven of the major social media sites have banned “hate speech,” a term that the study authors point out “is often applied in the culture to stifle Christian communicators.”

The study authors also found that some of the media companies have been responsive to demands by pressure groups calling for censorship of conservative or Christian viewpoints.

The study notes that when Google established new guidelines for its “Google for Non-Profits” in March 2011, it refused to list “churches and other faith groups” that consider “religion or sexual orientation in hiring practices.” Christian churches that have applied for the suite of Google tools geared at non-profits have been rejected.
...
Apple has twice removed applications that contained Christian content from its iTunes App Store, the study documented. In both instances, Apple admitted that these apps were denied access because it considered the Christian viewpoints expressed in those applications to be “offensive.”

“Of the 425,000 apps available on Apple’s iPhone, the only ones censored by Apple for expressing otherwise lawful viewpoints have been apps with Christian content,” observes the study.

For its part, Facebook has openly partnered with homosexual activists to “eradicate anti-gay comments on its platform,” the report found. “All of which suggest that Christian content critical of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, or similar practices will be at risk of censorship [by Facebook]” says the study. In fact, in some cases such content already has been removed by the social networking site.
Considering that one of the Facebook co-founders is involved in a perverse relationship - what else would we expect? And, talking about Facebook - here are few comments from the Shire Network News on some of the changes Facebook is implementing. I rarely use Facebook (and I've disabled e-mail notifications) so I didn't know that Facebook groups now work on an "opt-out" bases, rather than "opt-in".

But what about the alternatives? Sure I've seen social media sites that were supposed to become a Christian or a Catholic alternative to Facebook - those sites have either failed or - will fail eventually due to lack of members. Because you can never succeed by merely trying to copy someone else's idea, to merely catch up to a popular project... Are there any bright ideas of a real alternative? Any serious attempts to build an alternative social network that would be better than the familiar social media sites, not "just like Facebook, but for us"? I wish this wasn't a rhetorical question.

Update: LifeSiteNews translator and pro-family activist Julio Severo cut off by PayPal, following a pressure campaign by homosexual lobby groups.

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