Although we believe that the Internet can do a lot of good to spread the word of God, the Church in general cannot be naive to the dark side of the Internet. One of the largest problems with the Internet is pornography. Unlike the days of old when one needed to visit an adult bookstore to find it, now with the Internet you are blindly targeted by the pornographers, and you can view it anonymously.

Both Christians and non-Christians are becoming ensnared by the convenient accessibility of pornography. From there it destroys their relationships with God, their spouse, their family, their friends, and sometimes their job, just as Satan intended.

The statistics on pornography are staggering:

• The porn industry brings in more revenue than the combined revenue of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
• US pornography revenue exceeds the combined revenues of television networks ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion), and child pornography generates $3 billion annually.
• Men admitting to accessing pornography at work: 20%
• US adults who regularly visit pornography websites: 40 million
• Promise Keeper men who viewed pornography in the last week: 53%
• Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home: 47%
• Adults admitting to Internet sexual addiction: 10%
• Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 72% male – 28% female

The church needs to help encourage its congregation to protect itself while online. The FIRST STEP is getting a real web filter. Usually the parental controls that are built into many ISP’s do not do the job. You need to use one that you can control the level of protection as well as add the sites you don’t think should be visited. We believe this helps in most cases to keep accidental viewing of pornography low. The only down side to filtering is that it is not perfect and if you are looking for porn you will find a way around it. Web filtering does not help develop self-control if you have a problem with Internet pornography.

The SECOND STEP is Internet accountability. Take the anonymous viewing factor out of the Internet and you find the desire to look goes way down. Its effectiveness is due to the fact that every site you visit is reported to your accountability partner(s). They can visit a website to see where you have been, or email you every week with a summary. One of the programs can actually be set up to send a warning via email or phone if too many questionable sites have been visited in a short period of time.

Parents can also use this kind of tool to monitor where their children are going. If you think your children wouldn’t be doing that or couldn’t be ensnared by online porn, we encourage you to think again. The statistics say otherwise. Most stumble into it while doing homework on-line.

Some of the programs also block access to other dangers on the internet, such as chat programs or peer to peer file sharing. You can also set what time users are allowed on the internet, so periods where someone accountable is not present all Interent access can be blocked.

With both filtering and Internet accountability software, the Internet is a much safer place to surf. Many of these programs have trial periods, so if you are afraid you might not like the service or have heard they slow your computer or internet connection, you can test each one to determine if it will work for you. Internet filtering has come a long way in the last few years, and those arguments are no longer valid. Do the wise thing and install filtering and accountability software before it is too late for someone in your family.

On a side note, if you or someone you know needs help, but they are uncomfortable notifying someone they know, help is available at pure online. This is an anonymous, on-line program designed to stop pornography addiction.

Although most of the programs listed below share many of the same features, there are some features which make them stand out from each other and we have listed some of the differences below. If you need help deciding which one will suit your needs best, call us and we'd be happy to discuss your options.

Filter & Accountability:

Safe Eyes – Visit Website
Pros:

• Accountably partners can control all access levels from the web. They never have to visit your computer. We can’t stress how nice this feature is.
• Accessibility warning can be sent to accountability partners via email or phone after meeting a set threshold in a set amount of time. This is nice since you don’t have to wait for a weekly email summery or make a trip to the web to view their report. This will notify you as soon as your accountability partner starts to stumble and you can contact them right away.
• Tool bar for Internet Explorer and Fire Fox that let you monitor other accountability partners in real time.
• Macintosh version is available.
• Each license of the software you buy lets you place it on three computers and it can be a mix of Mac’s or PC’s.

• Can only install on three computers before needing to buy another license.

BSafe – Visit Website
Pros:

• For a little more money on top of the yearly filtering and accountability software they include anti-virus software, firewall, intrusion detection and spam filtering.

• Have to pay more to get in on more than one computer.

Filter Only Services

Integrity On-Line DSL, Dial-up, or hardware router service. – Visit website
Pros:

• All computers connected are filtered. No software to install or configure.
• Good for when friends or family bring their own computers over. Can’t bypass filtering by bringing your own computer.
• Simple to set up compared to software solutions.
• Included email accounts from integrity are filtered before reaching your computer.

• Can't change what level of filtering is set at.
• Can’t add or remove blocked sites. They are set by integrity online which errors more on the conservative side.
• Only blocks web traffic. Does not block chat or peer to peer programs.

Covenant Eyes – Visit Website
Pros:

• Can install on as many computers that you want to be accountable from rather than the usual three that most other programs allow.