I Prayed have prayed
Heavenly Father, nothing is hidden from You. Help us in this digital age to protect ourselves and our children. Thank You for Covenant Eyes and other aids to remain pure online.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Evangelical groups are turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to help their members fight addiction to online pornography in a budding industry that one scholar calls an emerging “purity-industrial complex.”

As pornography has exploded beyond just websites to apps and social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr and others, tech companies closely affiliated with church groups are capitalizing on the fears of devout Christians that “porn is the greatest threat to Christian purity and even the moral standard of the nation,” said Samuel Perry, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma and author of “Addicted to Lust.”

A recent report by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation cited a study of university students that found that 93 percent of boys and 62 percent of girls were exposed to online pornography during their adolescence.

Another study showed that among college-going men, nearly half were exposed to pornography as early as 13 years of age. A majority, or about 61 percent, of those accessing salacious material did so using their smartphones, the center said.

“It used to be that if you wanted to access porn you had to go to a seedy movie theater or go in a trenchcoat and buy from a seedy store,” Perry told CQ Roll Call. But the accessibility and anonymity of the internet has dramatically increased access to pornography and brought new fears to the devout, he said.

Covenant Eyes, based in Owosso, Michigan, is one of the companies that designs and sells software filters designed to detect computer or device users accessing pornography. The company works with pastors and ministries to address pornography use among their members.

“You know that people in your ministry are watching porn, and you know that porn use hinders spiritual growth and healthy relationships,” the Covenant Eyes website says, addressing itself to pastors. “But figuring out how to effectively help people overcome porn and find freedom can be overwhelming.”

Accountability partners

After buying a subscription to Covenant Eyes and installing the software on their devices, users are asked to provide an email and phone numbers for a list of friends, family or pastors, called accountability partners. If a user then accesses pornography on their laptop or smartphone, the software then would capture a screenshot, blur it and send an email to the “user’s ally or allies, who they have selected to help them in their journey,” says Dan Armstrong, a spokesman for the company.

The ally or allies then get what’s called a “concerning screenshot” and indicate that they should review the activity, according to the company’s website. “The concerning screenshot will not be immediately shown on the report so as not to immediately expose an ally (someone receiving a report) to potential pornography,” the website said. But the blurring will be removed if the reviewer clicks on an inspect button, the company said.

The goal is similar to the technique used by Alcoholics Anonymous to help people overcome addiction by creating partnerships with sponsors who help newcomers stay sober.

The company has about 300,000 current users who pay on average about $15.99 a month for unlimited use across multiple devices, Armstrong said. Almost all of them are men, and about 62 percent of them are married, he said. That works out to annual revenue of about $57 million.

A typical user tends to be a member for about 37 months, while some keep their subscription for a lifetime to avoid falling back into old habits, he said.

Unlike older technology that relied on keyword filters to block access to websites based on words found embedded in a site’s code, Covenant Eyes now uses the latest in artificial intelligence, Armstrong said.

“We’ve developed our own image recognition and machine learning artificial intelligence to detect pornography on a screen,” Armstrong told CQ Roll Call.

The artificial intelligence-based image detection software may also aid in detecting accidental exposure to pornography, especially among young people, Armstrong said.

About 65 percent of American men, or close to 100 million people, watch some pornography at least once a month, Armstrong said. But a 2016 survey by Plano, Texas-based Josh McDowell Ministry found that only about half of adults age 25 and older thought viewing pornography was wrong, Armstrong said.

Younger Americans between ages 13 and 24 said that not recycling was a worse moral offense than watching porn, the survey found.

(Excerpt from Roll Call. Article by Gopal Ratnam.)

Comments (3) Print

Comments

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Billy Driver
November 23, 2019

James 1:14 clearly tells us that we are drawn away by our own lustful thinking and desires. We need to run back to our first love and that is Jesus Christ. We need to start back thinking on those things that are true, pure and lovely. God said He will turn them over to their reprobate minds. God has not changed His mind about us having a free will to love Him whole heartedly. I wrote a book called, “Awakeningthesleepinggiantbybillyraydriver and I strongly believe that every believer should get a copy of that book for the things to come. I believe that God”s people should stop being silent on the things pertaining to the Word of God and be on one accord even more now than ever. We have a voice and we need to start speaking up and not as a denomination or an individual, but as a body of believer of Jesus Christ. God wants His people to be bold as a lion and gentle as a dove for such a time as this. For I know who I believe and I’m persuaded that He is able to keep that I have committed. Galatians said, O foolish Galatians who has bewitched you. So O foolish Amerca who has bewitched you to think that we can perfect the flesh. So let’s walk in agape love by hating the sin and loving the sinner.

Dorothy Ter Horst
November 21, 2019

Lord, please confuse the strategy of the demonic realm fueling pornography. Make one lie prove another wrong until they kill each other and fall to the ground in Jesus name, Amen.

Barbara
November 21, 2019

Another unsuspecting way satan uses is this: when I saw an ad on tv that doctors had approved for men, and because we were becoming seniors, I told my husband he might want to order some. After calling, My husband got a suspicious feeling, so he hung up. They had our address!! Every month thereafter for nearly two years we would get an envelope of ads with horrible pictures advertising it. The phrases and partial pictures on the envelope made me sick. I tried to “return to sender”, but the post office doesn’t do that anymore. I had to open this horrible stuff to get the phone number to have our name removed. The music was always the same as I awaited a person with whom to talk. They sell your name to other companies, so when one stops another picks up. I would try to get to the phone number from the material within (discretely hidden) to call. Then I would shred and only look long enough to make sure this evil, demonic stuff was in the machine right so that I’d never see it again. Finally, this two-year nightmare stopped. What if we’d had children at home? It scares me to think what could have happened.

Partner with Us

Intercessors for America is the trusted resource for millions of people across the United States committed to praying for our nation. If you have benefited from IFA's resources and community, please consider joining us as a monthly support partner. As a 501(c)3 organization, it's through your support that all this possible.

Dave Kubal
IFA President
Become a Monthly Partner

Share

Click below to share this with others

Log in to Join the Conversation

Log in to your IFA account to start a discussion, comment, pray, and interact with our community.