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The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

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Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#41

Post by soulofmischief »

sverona wrote: post #35

I'm trans and sexually active. I was raised evangelical, amongst the Pokemon-promotes-evolution, Satan-left-bones-in-the-earth-to-trick-us variety. This gives me the willies. It reminds me of being six years old and questioning whether everything I saw that wasn't church was evil. I dealt with suicidal thoughts for many years, largely because my rearing amounted to being shoved in a box and told not to come out. Also…

Sorry you had to go through that. Christianity is so fucked up. I was raised Catholic and wasn't allowed to have long hair or dress myself or play flute in band etc. because it would turn me gay, heavily physically abused on a near-nightly basis, yada yada. No Pokemon or Harry Potter. Solidarity, friend.

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#42

Post by uticus »

sverona wrote: post #39
uticus wrote: post #32

> While these apps claim to have helped many people overcome pornography addictions, experts who study sexual health are skeptical that the apps have a lasting positive effect. “I’ve never seen anyone who’s been on one of these apps feel better about themselves in the long term,” says Nicole Praus, a scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the effects of pornography on the brain and the sp…

Slippery slope fallacy. (You mentioned something about murder in another comment --- same story.) The reprehensible exploitation of sex workers does not make sex work inherently bad. I have friends who do sex work on the side. They sell their own porn. They explicitly want to be sexualized and, yes, objectified, and they'll tell you as much. Are they being exploited, and by whom?

> The reprehensible exploitation of sex workers does not make sex work inherently bad.

Yes, let's avoid slippery slopes, please make things clear. What defines "bad" or "good" here? How much money porneia makes for those profiteering from it? How much pleasure the consumers get? What the health expert of the day prescribes? All I can gather so far is that you have better reasons to say porneia production isn't bad because your friends willingly do it.

I'm glad you mentioned the producers of porneia, because my comment was focused on the consumers, and I keep forgetting about the harm that comes to people who profit from the industry.

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#43

Post by bergenty »

sverona wrote: post #35

I'm trans and sexually active. I was raised evangelical, amongst the Pokemon-promotes-evolution, Satan-left-bones-in-the-earth-to-trick-us variety. This gives me the willies. It reminds me of being six years old and questioning whether everything I saw that wasn't church was evil. I dealt with suicidal thoughts for many years, largely because my rearing amounted to being shoved in a box and told not to come out. Also…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#44

Post by uticus »

tolmasky wrote: post #11

> Fortify’s inclusion of Facebook’s Pixel isn’t just a privacy issue, it’s a security problem. While testing the app, we also noticed that the password to our account was sent in plaintext to Facebook in the URL of the tracking requests. Facebook claims to have filtering mechanisms to prevent its systems from storing this type of personal information, but Fortify’s apparent oversight is still concerning to experts li…

> Under those conditions I feel that it becomes pretty hard to defend these apps.

The problem is that there are precious little alternatives.

This article focused on Christians as a primary user of these tools. Put yourself in a Christian's shoes for a minute. You, being a Christian, are convinced your impulses and desires lead you to what is often harmful to yourself and those around you, and most importantly dishonoring to a God who you are convinced is honorable and good.

You don't want to just say "no internet", but much content on the internet is so very well tailored to those impulses and desires. You are often presented with content that requires an immediate internal fight, and you know that some of those fights don't turn out the way you want.

Look, when you are committed to fighting, you'll reach for any tool at hand. I'm not going to wait for a tank to magically appear for me when someone throws a punch at me.

Unfortunately even though these churches are using tools with privacy issues, at the end of the day: it's what is available. And, the fact that the whole concern of personal privacy is often times at odds with the bigger fight doesn't help.

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#45

Post by syrrim »

We thought that access to better technology would make people more free, but there are many ways it can make us less free instead. First through differential control of technology; whoever has control of some new tech will be able to use it to disempower others. Second is through robbing us of agency; technology can make it too easy for us to do things we don't want to do, causing us to do them against our will. At some point we will need to confront these issues.

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#46

Post by powerslacker »

hef19898 wrote: post #13
jrs235 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer the questions about the guy's accountability partner: the guy didn't (truly and freely) choose his accountability partner, his "accountability partner", actually "monitor", chose him. Add: And it seems the guy was rushed ("forced") into installing the app and agreeing to the "solution".

I cannot imagine how hard it has to be for a religious memeber of the LGBTQ community. One part of you, the religious part, is abused by religious leaders people you have faith in and trust, to deny the other part. But hey, the Catholic church has a tremendous history of accepting whatever abuse from priests while using some deeply rooted desires of their followers to accept that abuse. That being said, the "priest"…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#47

Post by powerslacker »

LatteLazy wrote: post #7
CoastalCoder wrote: post #3

The article doesn't strike me as super biased, but it may be a bit shallow regarding the issues. If one doesn't start with the premise that Christian beliefs are bogus, then I'd be interested in: - How could someone realistically use the modern Internet and still avoid content that starts them down unwelcome paths? (A secular analogue might be suicide ideation.) - How could that guy's accountability partner have bett…

>If one doesn't start with the premise that Christian beliefs are bogus I get where you're coming from, and as long as no one is compelling the "victim" I think they should be free to make their own mistakes. That said, it's very well proven that you cannot change your sexual orientation and anyone claiming you can is a fraudster whether they dress as a priest or medical professional or an "accountability partner" or…

There are numerous cases of changes to "sexual orientation".

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#48

Post by suggestion »

m000 wrote: post #26
listless wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the way they wrote it. In reality, having an accountability partner is not new and it’s likely this guy signed on for it. Think of it like an AA sponsor - however poorly implemented here.

If it was Jeff Bezos assigning an employee a "pee accountability partner", would you also say "this is what this guy signed on for" by working for him?

Yes, no one is forced to work for Jeff Bezos

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#49

Post by tolmasky »

uticus wrote: post #44
tolmasky wrote: post #11

> Fortify’s inclusion of Facebook’s Pixel isn’t just a privacy issue, it’s a security problem. While testing the app, we also noticed that the password to our account was sent in plaintext to Facebook in the URL of the tracking requests. Facebook claims to have filtering mechanisms to prevent its systems from storing this type of personal information, but Fortify’s apparent oversight is still concerning to experts li…

> Under those conditions I feel that it becomes pretty hard to defend these apps. The problem is that there are precious little alternatives. This article focused on Christians as a primary user of these tools. Put yourself in a Christian's shoes for a minute. You, being a Christian, are convinced your impulses and desires lead you to what is often harmful to yourself and those around you, and most importantly dishon…

> Look, when you are committed to fighting, you'll reach for any tool at hand.

I think this makes sense if you are trying to fight this, find this solution, and determine it is right for you. However, it feels like the "tool chooser" in many of these scenarios is different from the "tool user". A world that was geared towards individuals that wanted to fight their own impulses might create an app that just shut down your phone when you looked at questionable material, or charged you (like a "cursing jar" app). These apps instead seem to be "observer-centric", not "observed-centric". As such, it appears that oftentimes this is not the tool someone is reaching for, but the tool that is being handed out, if that makes sense. Clearly there exist other solutions to these "problems" (without getting into arguing whether this should be considered a problem or not). This honestly just feels like a lazy means of enforcement for the "accountability partner". In other words, the problem being solved here doesn't necessarily feel like it's "help me get over this", but rather "make helping me less of a burden on someone who's job is to help me, by letting them just look at an email at the end of the day."

Re: The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps

#50

Post by danbolt »

bergenty wrote: post #43
sverona wrote: post #35

I'm trans and sexually active. I was raised evangelical, amongst the Pokemon-promotes-evolution, Satan-left-bones-in-the-earth-to-trick-us variety. This gives me the willies. It reminds me of being six years old and questioning whether everything I saw that wasn't church was evil. I dealt with suicidal thoughts for many years, largely because my rearing amounted to being shoved in a box and told not to come out. Also…

Quoted post unavailable.

Give me strength.
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