A group of Evangelical Christians have created a “sin free” social network that filters out swearing and erotic content.
Faceglória has attracted 100,000 members since it was launched last month and its creators have big plans for the future.
Based heavily on Facebook, the Brazilian site allows users to create profiles, write status updates and upload photos. If someone likes a post they can click the “amen” button.
The site is currently only available in Portuguese although other languages are planned as well as a mobile app.
Some Christians have expressed their dismay at Facebook and other social networks, which they say contain too much violence or promote lifestyles they believe to be immoral. A recent example was Facebook’s decision to create a tool that let users superimpose a rainbow over their profile pictures to celebrate gay pride.
Faceglória designer Atilla Barros told AFP: “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.”
The site has a black list of more than 600 banned words, as well as restrictions on violent and erotic content, and photos and videos of gay couples kissing.
“We want to be morally and structurally better than Facebook,” Barros said, adding: “We want all evangelicals in Brazil to migrate to Faceglória.”
A team of more than 20 volunteers patrol the site, assessing content such as photos of women in bikinis, suggestive “selfies” and images containing alcohol or cigarettes. “But our audience doesn’t post these sorts of images anyway,” says Daiane Santos, who spends more than six hours a day volunteering for the site.
Brazil has the biggest Catholic population of any state in the world, with 65 per cent of its 205 million inhabitants members of the Church, however Evangelical Protestantism has been growing in recent years, with 22 per cent now professing to members of a Protestant denomination.
Barros – “In two years we would like achieve 10 million users in Brazil. Since 4 June, when we launched, we’ve gained 100,000 profiles and we don’t even have a mobile app.”
Although it is still only available in Brazilian Portuguese, it plans to expand across the world.
“Our network will be global. We’ve also bought the Faceglory domain in English and in all other languages you could possibly imagine. We want to take on Facebook and Twitter across the world.”
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