Devout Christians are celebrating the emergence of a new sin-free social media platform called FaceGloria, which is a lot like Facebook. FaceGloria, which promoted itself as a morally superior alternative to Facebook, offers religious users an experience on the Internet that is free of sins and blasphemy and allows them to praise the lord in their posts. The revolutionary platform was developed in Brazil, as it initially started out as a nation-wide project in Portuguese, but thanks to its exceptionally successful debut, its creators are now hoping to cater to an international audience through an English version of the same.
FaceGloria offers users most of the features that are already available on other social media websites, including messages, photos, videos and apps. The extensive system also focuses on filtering information that appears to violate the laws of God. As opposed to Facebook and Twitter, FaceGloria ensures that there is no exchange of abuse, nudity or violence so Christians can feel fulfilled with information that is in keeping with God’s rules. Usually, users log on to this platform to talk about the miracles that they have witnessed and bless one another with the grace of God. Instead of liking posts on FaceGloria, users can actually click on an Amen button if they want to emulate a similar response. One of the founders, Atilla Barros, told the media, “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.”
Barros, along with three Christian colleagues, started working on FaceGloria while they were still working at the mayor’s office. Concluding that there was a growing need for a squeaky-clean version of Facebook, the four approached the mayor of Ferraz de Vasconcelos for $16,000 to help them to launch their own startup.
In Brazil alone, FaceGloria managed to acquire over 100,000 users within the first month, thus establishing itself as a powerful medium that people are in fact interested in. Additionally, its creators are trying to experiment with the growing numbers by launching an app as well.
Even though any person is eligible to sign up on FaceGloria, they are mandated to behave in a proper manner. With a long list of 600 cusswords forbidden as well as images or videos with violent or erotic subtexts banned on the website, it must be rather challenging for individuals to make their presence felt on FaceGloria. “We want to be morally and technically better than Facebook. We want all Brazilian Evangelicals to shift to Facegloria,” Barros said.
As part of the extensive system that filters information on FaceGloria, over 20 volunteers manually patrol the website to sieve appropriate language and decide whether or not to allow pictures of bikini-clad women and men consuming alcohol or tobacco. Yet, the moral police behind the scenes claim that their job is not as difficult.
26-year-old Daiane Santos, one of the volunteers, who spends up to six hours every day to weed out inappropriate content on FaceGloria, said, “Our public doesn't publish these kinds of photos.”
While 99 percent of Brazilians have declared that they believe in some form of divinity or higher power, it remains to be seen how people from across the world respond to the website’s English version. Considering how popular FaceGloria has emerged to be in such a short period of time, critics are speculating the concept has great promise for those who wish to steer clear of sinful and blasphemous social media content. Expectedly, this platform caters only to heterosexual individuals, as lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people are considered nonreligious and the website’s developers were quick to justify their discriminatory rules on religious grounds.
Even though Brazil has the largest number of Roman Catholics in the world, it has been witnessing a steady decline in the numbers since 1980. On the other hand, Evangelicals seem to be taking over the country’s population, though slowly but steadily. At the current rate, it is believed that Evangelicals would constitute the majority of Brazil’s population by 2040 and FaceGloria hopes to be riding the wave at that point.
Edin Abumanssur, an expert on religion at Sao Paulo's Catholic University, said, “Evangelicals have spread because of the intense urbanization over the last 50 years. The Pentecostal messages that are preached in the outskirts of cities and the favelas puts a lot of emphasis on the individual as being responsible for his behavior if he wants help from God too. This kind of faith works well in cities. The religious movement's influence is seen everywhere.”
Barros said that he wants FaceGloria to become the country’s to-go website. “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,” he said.
Similarly, Mayor Acir dos Santos said that there is no limit to the website’s success.
“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,” he said.
Photo Credits: Capital Wired
